The terraced garden at Garth rested to the south and east on a sustaining wall so high that to build it to-day would tax the resources of three Squires1. Unfortunately, either for defence or protection from the weather, the wall rose high on the inner side also, so that he who walked in the garden might enjoy the mellow3 tints4 of the old brickwork, but had no view of the country except through certain loop-holes, gable-shaped, which pierced the wall at intervals5, like the port-holes of a battleship. If the lover of landscape wanted more, he must climb half a dozen steps to a raised walk which ran along the south side. Thence he could look, as from an eyrie, on the green meadows below him, or away to the line of hills to westward6, or turning about he could overlook the operations of the gardener at his feet.
More, if it rained or blew there was at the south-west corner, and entered from the raised walk, an ancient Dutch summer-house of brick, with a pyramidal roof. It had large windows and, with much at Garth that served for ornament7 rather than utility, it was decayed, time and damp having almost effaced8 its dim frescoes9. But tradition hallowed it, for it was said that William of Orange, after dining in the hall at the oaken table which still bore the date 1691, had smoked his pipe and drunk his Schnapps in this summer-house; and thence had watched the roll of the bowls and the play of the bias10 on the turf below. For in those days the garden had been a bowling11 green.
There on summer evenings the Squire2 would still drink his port, but in winter the place was little used, tools desecrated12 it, and tubers took refuge in it. So when Josina began about this time to frequent it, and, as winter yielded to the first breath of spring, began to carry her work thither13 of an afternoon, Miss Peacock should have had her suspicions. But the good lady saw nothing, being a busy woman. Thomas the groom14 did remark the fact, for idle hands make watchful15 eyes, but for a time he was none the wiser.
"What's young Miss doing up there?" he asked himself. "Must be tarnation cold! And her look's fine, too! Ay, 'tis well to be them as has nought16 to do but traipse up and down and sniff17 the air!"
Naturally it did not at once occur to him that the summer-house commanded a view of the path which ran along the brook18 side; nor did he suppose that Miss had any purpose, when, as might happen perhaps once a week, she would leave her station at the window and in an aimless fashion wander down to the mill--and beyond it. She might be following a duck inclined to sit, or later--for turkeys will stray--be searching for a turkey's nest. She might be doing fifty things, indeed--she was sometimes so long away. But the time did come when, being by chance at the mill, Thomas saw a second figure on the path beside the water, and he laid by the knowledge for future use. He was a sly fellow, not much in favor with the other servants.
Presently there came a cold Saturday in March, a wet, windy day, when to saunter by the brook would have too odd an air. But would it have an odd look, Josina wondered, standing19 before the glass in her room, if she ran across to the Cottage for ten minutes about sunset? The bank closed early on Saturdays, and men were not subject to the weather as women were. Twice she put on her bonnet20, and twice she took it off and put it back in its box--she could not make up her mind. He might think that she followed him. He might think her bold. Or suppose that when they met before others, she blushed; or that they thought the meeting strange? And, after all, he might not be there--he was no favorite with Mrs. Bourdillon, and his heart might fail him. In the end the bonnet was put away, but it is to be feared that that evening Jos was a little snappish with Miss Peacock when arraigned21 for some act of forgetfulness.
Had she gone she might have come off no better than Clement22, who, braving all things, did go. Mrs. Bourdillon did not, indeed, say when he entered, "What, here again?" but her manner spoke23 for her, and Arthur, who had arrived before his time, received the visitor with less than his usual good humor. Clement's explanation, that he had left his gun, fell flat, and so chilly24 were the two that he stayed but twenty minutes, then faltered25 an excuse, and went off with his tail between his legs.
He did not guess that he had intruded26 on a family difference, a trouble of some standing, which the passage of weeks had but aggravated27. It turned on Ovington's offer, which Arthur, pluming28 himself on his success and proud of his prospects29, had lost no time in conveying to his mother. He had supposed that she would see the thing with his eyes, and be as highly delighted. To become a partner so early, to share at his age in the rising fortunes of the house! Surely she would believe in him now, if she had never believed in him before.
But Mrs. Bourdillon had been imbued30 by her husband with one fixed31 idea--that whatever happened she must never touch her capital; that under no circumstances must she spend it, or transfer it or alienate32 it. That way lay ruin. No sooner, therefore, had Arthur come to that part of his story than she had taken fright; and nothing that he had been able to say, no assurance that he had been able to give, no gilded33 future that he had been able to paint, had sufficed to move the good woman from her position.
"Of course," she said, looking at him piteously, for she hated to oppose him, "I'm not saying that it does not sound nice, dear."
"It is nice! Very nice!"
"But I'm older than you, and oh, dear, dear, I've known what disappointment is! I remember when your father thought that he had the promise of the Benthall living and we bought the drawing-room carpet, though it was blue and buff and your father did not like the color--something to do with a fox, I remember, though to be sure a fox is red! Well, my dear," drumming with her fingers on her lap in a placid34 way that maddened her listener, "he was just as confident as you are, and after all the Bishop35 gave the living to his own cousin, and the money thrown clean away, and the carpet too large for any room we had, and woven of one piece so that we couldn't cut it! I'm sure that was a lesson to me that there's many a slip between the cup and the lip. Believe me, a bird in the hand----"
"But this is in the hand!" Arthur cried, restraining himself with difficulty. "This is in the hand!"
"Well, I don't know how that may be. I never was a business woman, whatever your uncle may say when he is in his tantrums. But I do know that your father told me, nine or ten times----"
"And you've told me a hundred times!"
"Well, and I'm sure your uncle would say the same! But, indeed, I don't know what he wouldn't say if he knew what we were thinking of!"
"The truth is, mother, you are afraid of the Squire."
"And if I am," plaintively36, "it is all very well for you, Arthur, who are away six days out of seven. But I'm here and he's here. And I have to listen to him. And if this money is lost----"
"But it cannot be lost, I tell you!"
"Well, if it is lost, we shall both be beggars! Oh, dear, dear, I'm sure if your father told me once he told me a hundred times----"
"Damn!" Arthur cried, fairly losing his temper at last. "The truth is, mother, that my father knew nothing about money."
At that, however, Mrs. Bourdillon began to cry and Arthur found himself obliged to drop the matter for the time. He saw, too, that he was on the wrong tack37, and a few days later, under pressure of necessity, he tried another. He humbled38 himself, he wheedled39, he cajoled; and when he had by this means got on the right side of his mother he spoke of Ovington's success.
"In a few years he will be worth a quarter of a million," he said.
The figure flustered40 her. "Why, that's----"
"A quarter of a million," he repeated impressively. "And that's why I consider this the chance of my life, mother. It is such an opportunity as I shall never have again. It is within my reach now, and surely, surely," his voice shook with the fervor41 of his pleading, "you will not be the one to dash it from my lips?" He laid his hand upon her wrist. "And ruin your son's life, mother?"
She was shaken. "You know, if I thought it was for your good!"
"It is! It is, mother!"
"I'd do anything to make you happy, Arthur! But I don't believe," with a sigh, "that whatever I did your uncle would pay the money."
"Is it his money or yours?"
"Why, of course, Arthur, I thought that you knew that it was your father's." She was very simple, and her pride was touched.
"And now it is yours. And I suppose that some day--I hope it will be a long day, mother--it will be mine. Believe me, you've only to write to my uncle and tell him that you have decided42 to call it up, and he will pay it as a matter of course. Shall I write the letter for you to sign?"
Mrs. Bourdillon looked piteously at him. She was very, very unwilling43 to comply, but what was she to do? Between love of him and fear of the Squire, what was she to do? Poor woman, she did not know. But he was with her, the Squire was absent, and she was about to acquiesce44 when a last argument occurred to her. "But you are forgetting," she said, "if your uncle takes offence, and I'm sure he will, he'll come between you and Josina."
"Well, that is his look-out."
"Arthur! You don't mean that you've changed your mind, and you so fond of her? And the girl heir to Garth and all her father's money!"
"I say nothing about it," Arthur declared. "If he chooses to come between us that will be his doing, not mine."
"But Garth!" Mrs. Bourdillon was altogether at sea. "My dear boy, you are not thinking! Why, Lord ha' mercy on us, where would you find such another, young and pretty and all, and Garth in her pocket? Why, if it were only on Jos's account you'd be mad to quarrel with him."
"I'm not going to quarrel with him," Arthur replied sullenly46. "If he chooses to quarrel with me, well, she's not the only heiress in the world."
His mother held up her hands. "Oh dear me," she said wearily. "I give it up, I don't understand you. But I'm only a woman and I suppose I don't understand anything."
He was accustomed to command and she to be guided. He saw that she was wavering, and he plied45 her afresh, and in the end, though not without another outburst of tears, he succeeded. He fetched the pen, he smoothed the paper, and before he handed his mother her bed-candle he had got the fateful letter written, and had even by lavishing47 on her unusual signs of affection brought a smile to her face. "It will be all right, mother, you'll see," he urged as he watched her mount the stairs. "It will be all right! You'll see me a millionaire yet."
And then he made a mistake which was to cost him dearly. He left the letter on the mantel-shelf. An hour later, when he had been some time in bed, he heard a door open and he sat up and listened. Even then, had he acted on the instant, it might have availed. But he hesitated, arguing down his misgivings48, and it was only when he caught the sound of footsteps stealthily re-ascending that he jumped out of bed and lit a candle. He slipped downstairs, but he was too late. The letter was gone.
He went up to bed again, and though he wondered at the queer ways of women he did not as yet doubt the issue. He would recover the letter in the morning and send it. The end would be the same.
There, however, he was wrong. Mrs. Bourdillon was a weak woman, but weakness has its own obstinacy49, and by the morning she had reflected. The sum charged on Garth was her whole fortune, her sole support, and were it lost she would be penniless, with no one to look to except the Squire, whom she would have offended beyond forgiveness. True, Arthur laughed at the idea of loss, and he was clever. But he was young and sanguine50, and before now she had heard of mothers beggared through the ill-fortune or the errors of their children. What if that should be her lot!
Nor was this the only thought which pressed upon her mind. That Arthur should marry Josina and succeed to Garth had been for years her darling scheme, and she could not, in spite of the hopes with which he had for the moment dazzled her, imagine any future for him comparable to that. But if he would marry Josina and succeed to Garth he must not offend his uncle.
So, when Arthur came down in the morning, and with assumed carelessness asked for the letter she put him off. It was Sunday. She would not discuss business on Sunday, it would not be lucky. On Monday, when, determined51 to stand no more nonsense, he returned to the subject, she took refuge in tears. It was cruel of him to press her so, when--when she was not well! She had not made up her mind. She did not know what she should do. To tears there is no answer, and, angry as he was, he had to start for Aldersbury, leaving the matter unsettled, much to his disgust and alarm, for the time was running on.
And that was the beginning of a tragedy in the little house under Garthmyle. It was a struggle between strength and weakness, and weakness, as usual, sought shelter in subterfuge52. When Arthur came home at the end of the week his mother took care to have company, and he could not get a word with her. She had no time for business--it must wait. On the next Saturday she was not well, and kept her bed, and on the Sunday met him with the same fretful plea--she would do no business on Sunday! Then, convinced at last that she had made up her mind to thwart53 him, he hardened his heart. He loved his mother, and to go beyond a certain point did not consort54 with his easy nature, but he had no option; the thing must be done if his prospects were not to be wrecked55. He became hard, cruel, almost brutal56; threatening to leave her, threatening to take himself off altogether, harassing57 her week after week, in what should have been her happiest hours, with pictures of the poverty, the obscurity, the hopelessness to which she was condemning58 him! And, worst of all, torturing her with doubts that after all he might be right.
And still she resisted, and weak, foolish woman as she was, resisted with an obstinacy that was infinitely59 provoking. Meanwhile only two things supported her: her love for him, and the belief that she was defending his best interests and that some day he would thank her. She was saving him from himself. The odds60 were great, she was unaccustomed to oppose him, and still she withstood him. She would not sign the letter. But she suffered, and suffered terribly.
She took to bringing in guests as buffers61 between them, and once or twice she brought in Josina. The girl, who knew them both so well, could not fail to see that there was something wrong, that something marred62 the relations between mother and son. Arthur's moody63 brow, his silence, or his snappish answers, no less than Mrs. Bourdillon's scared manner, left her in no doubt of that. But she fancied that this was only another instance of the law of man's temper and woman's endurance--that law to which she knew but one exception. And if the girl hugged that exception, trembling and hoping, to her breast, if Arthur's coldness was a relief to her, if she cared little for any secret but her own, she was no more of a mystery to them than they were to her. When the door closed behind her, and, accompanied by a maid, she crossed the dark fields, she thought no more about them. The two ceased--such is the selfishness of love--to exist for her. Her thoughts were engrossed64 by another, by one who until lately had been a stranger, but whose figure now excluded the world from her view. Her secret monopolized65 her, closed her heart, blinded her eyes. Such is the law of love--at a certain stage in its growth.
Meanwhile life at the Cottage went on in this miserable66 fashion until April had come in and the daffodils were in full bloom in the meadows beside the river. And still Arthur could not succeed in his object, and wondering what the banker thought of the delay and his silence, was almost beside himself with chagrin67. Then there came a welcome breathing space. Ovington despatched him to London on an important and confidential68 mission. He was to be away rather more than a fortnight, and the relief was much even to him. To his mother it had been more, if he had not, with politic69 cruelty, kept from her the cause of his absence. She feared that he was about to carry out his threat and to make a home elsewhere--that this was the end, that he was going to leave her. And perhaps, she thought, she had been wrong. Perhaps, after all, she had sacrificed his love and lost his dear presence for nothing! It was a sad Easter that she passed, lonely and anxious, in the little house.
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1
squires
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| n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
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squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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effaced
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| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
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frescoes
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| n.壁画( fresco的名词复数 )；温壁画技法，湿壁画 | |
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bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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bowling
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| n.保龄球运动 | |
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desecrated
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| 毁坏或亵渎( desecrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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nought
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| n.／adj.无，零 | |
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sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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arraigned
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| v.告发( arraign的过去式和过去分词 )；控告；传讯；指责 | |
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clement
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| adj.仁慈的；温和的 | |
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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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chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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intruded
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| n.侵入的，推进的v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的过去式和过去分词 )；把…强加于 | |
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aggravated
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| 使恶化( aggravate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使更严重； 激怒； 使恼火 | |
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pluming
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| 用羽毛装饰（plume的现在分词形式） | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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imbued
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| v.使（某人/某事）充满或激起（感情等）( imbue的过去式和过去分词 )；使充满；灌输；激发（强烈感情或品质等） | |
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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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alienate
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| vt.使疏远，离间；转让(财产等) | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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tack
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| n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝 | |
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humbled
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| adj. 卑下的，谦逊的，粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑下，贬低 | |
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wheedled
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| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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flustered
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| adj.慌张的；激动不安的v.使慌乱，使不安( fluster的过去式和过去分词) | |
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fervor
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| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
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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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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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acquiesce
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| vi.默许，顺从，同意 | |
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45
plied
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的过去式和过去分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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sullenly
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| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
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lavishing
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的现在分词 ) | |
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misgivings
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧 | |
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obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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50
sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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52
subterfuge
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| n.诡计；藉口 | |
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53
thwart
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| v.阻挠，妨碍，反对；adj.横(断的) | |
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54
consort
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| v.相伴；结交 | |
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wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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harassing
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| v.侵扰，骚扰( harass的现在分词 )；不断攻击（敌人） | |
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condemning
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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buffers
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| 起缓冲作用的人（或物）( buffer的名词复数 )； 缓冲器； 减震器； 愚蠢老头 | |
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62
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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63
moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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64
engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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65
monopolized
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| v.垄断( monopolize的过去式和过去分词 )；独占；专卖；专营 | |
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66
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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67
chagrin
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| n.懊恼；气愤；委屈 | |
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68
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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politic
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| adj.有智虑的；精明的；v.从政 | |
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