Throughout the rest of the journey I observed the strictest caution, and fortune seconded my efforts. It was dark when we got to Shrewsbury. On leaving the coach I was enabled, under cover of the night, to keep a sharp watch on the proceedings1 of Screw and his Bow Street ally. They did not put up at the hotel, but walked away to a public house. There, my clerical character obliged me to leave them at the door.
I returned to the hotel, to make inquiries2 about conveyances3.
The answers informed me that Crickgelly was a little fishing-village, and that there was no coach direct to it, but that two coaches running to two small Welsh towns situated4 at nearly equal distances from my destination, on either side of it, would pass through Shrewsbury the next morning. The waiter added, that I could book a place—conditionally—by either of these vehicles; and that, as they were always well-filled, I had better be quick in making my choice between them. Matters had now arrived at such a pass, that nothing was left for me but to trust to chance. If I waited till the morning to see whether Screw and the Bow Street runner traveled in my direction, and to find out, in case they did, which coach they took, I should be running the risk of losing a place for myself, and so delaying my journey for another day. This was not to be thought of. I told the waiter to book me a place in which coach he pleased. The two were called respectively The Humming Bee, and The Red Cross Knight5. The waiter chose the latter.
Sleep was not much in my way that night. I rose almost as early as Boots himself—breakfasted—then sat at the coffee-room window looking out anxiously for the two coaches.
Nobody seemed to agree which would pass first. Each of the inn servants of whom I inquired made it a matter of partisanship6, and backed his favorite coach with the most consummate7 assurance. At last, I heard the guard’s horn and the clatter8 of the horses’ hoofs9. Up drove a coach—I looked out cautiously—it was the Humming Bee. Three outside places were vacant; one behind the coachman; two on the dickey. The first was taken immediately by a farmer, the second—-to my unspeakable disgust and terror—was secured by the inevitable10 Bow Street runner; who, as soon as h e was up, helped the weakly Screw into the third place, by his side. They were going to Crickgelly; not a doubt of it, now.
I grew mad with impatience11 for the arrival of the Red Cross Knight. Half-an-hour passed—forty minutes—and then I heard another horn and another clatter—and the Red Cross Knight rattled12 up to the hotel door at full speed. What if there should be no vacant place for me! I ran to the door with a sinking heart. Outside, the coach was declared to be full.
“There is one inside place,” said the waiter, “if you don’t mind paying the—”
Before he could say the rest, I was occupying that one inside place. I remember nothing of the journey from the time we left the hotel door, except that it was fearfully long. At some hour of the day with which I was not acquainted (for my watch had stopped for want of winding13 up), I was set down in a clean little street of a prim14 little town (the name of which I never thought of asking), and was told that the coach never went any further.
No post-chaise was to be had. With incredible difficulty I got first a gig, then a man to drive it; and, last, a pony15 to draw it. We hobbled away crazily from the inn door. I thought of Screw and the Bow Street runner approaching Crickgelly, from their point of the compass, perhaps at the full speed of a good post-chaise—I thought of that, and would have given all the money in my pocket for two hours’ use of a fast road-hack.
Judging by the time we occupied in making the journey, and a little also by my own impatience, I should say that Crickgelly must have been at least twenty miles distant from the town where I took the gig. The sun was setting, when we first heard, through the evening stillness, the sound of the surf on the seashore. The twilight16 was falling as we entered the little fishing village, and let our unfortunate pony stop, for the last time, at a small inn door.
The first question I asked of the landlord was, whether two gentlemen (friends of mine, of course, whom I expected to meet) had driven into Crickgelly, a little while before me. The reply was in the negative; and the sense of relief it produced seemed to rest me at once, body and mind, after my long and anxious journey. Either I had beaten the spies on the road, or they were not bound to Crickgelly. Any way, I had first possession of the field of action. I paid the man who had driven me, and asked my way to Zion Place. My directions were simple—I had only to go through the village, and I should find Zion Place at the other end of it.
The village had a very strong smell, and a curious habit of building boats in the street between intervals17 of detached cottages; a helpless, muddy, fishy18 little place. I walked through it rapidly; turned inland a few hundred yards; ascended19 some rising ground; and discerned, in the dim twilight, four small lonesome villas20 standing21 in pairs, with a shed and a saw-pit on one side, and a few shells of unfinished houses on the other. Some madly speculative22 builder was evidently trying to turn Crickgelly into a watering-place.
I made out Number Two, and discovered the bell-handle with difficulty, it was growing so dark. A servant-maid—corporeally enormous; but, as I soon found, in a totally undeveloped state, mentally—opened the door.
“Does Miss Giles live here?” I asked.
“Don’t see no visitors,” answered the large maiden23. “‘T’other one tried it and had to go away. You go, too.”
“‘T’othor one?” I repeated. “Another visitor? And when did he call?”
“Better than an hour ago.”
“Was there nobody with him?”
“No. Don’t see no visitors. He went. You go, too.”
Just as she repeated that exasperating24 formula of words, a door opened at the end of the passage. My voice had evidently reached the ears of somebody in the back parlor25. Who the person was I could not see, but I heard the rustle26 of a woman’s dress. My situation was growing desperate, my suspicions were aroused—I determined27 to risk everything—and I called softly in the direction of the open door, “Alicia!”
A voice answered, “Good heavens! Frank?” It was her voice. She had recognized mine. I pushed past the big servant; in two steps I was at the end of the passage; in one more I was in the back parlor.
She was there, standing alone by the side of a table. Seeing my changed costume and altered face, she turned deadly pale, and stretched her hand behind her mechanically, as if to take hold of a chair. I caught her in my arms; but I was afraid to kiss her—she trembled so when I only touched her.
“Frank!” she said, drawing her head back. “What is it? How did you find out? For mercy’s sake what does it mean?”
“It means, love, that I’ve come to take care of you for the rest of your life and mine, if you will only let me. Don’t tremble—there’s nothing to be afraid of! Only compose yourself, and I’ll tell you why I am here in this strange disguise. Come, come, Alicia!—don’t look like that at me. You called me Frank just now, for the first time. Would you have done that, if you had disliked me or forgotten me?”
I saw her color beginning to come back—the old bright glow returning to the dear dusky cheeks. If I had not seen them so near me, I might have exercised some self-control—as it was, I lost my presence of mind entirely28, and kissed her.
She drew herself away half-frightened, half-confused—certainly not offended, and, apparently29, not very likely to faint—which was more than I could have said of her when I first entered the room. Before she had time to reflect on the peril30 and awkwardness of our position, I pressed the first necessary questions on her rapidly, one after the other.
“Where is Mrs. Baggs?” I asked first.
Mrs. Baggs was the housekeeper31.
Alicia pointed32 to the closed folding-doors. “In the front parlor; asleep on the sofa.”
“Have you any suspicion who the stranger was who called more than an hour ago?”
“None. The servant told him we saw no visitors, and he went away, without leaving his name.”
“Have you heard from your father?”
She began to turn pale again, but controlled herself bravely, and answered in a whisper:
“Mrs. Baggs had a short note from him this morning. It was not dated; and it only said circumstances had happened which obliged him to leave home suddenly, and that we were to wait here till be wrote again, most likely in a few days.”
“Now, Alicia,” I said, as lightly as I could, “I have the highest possible opinion of your courage, good-sense, and self-control; and I shall expect you to keep up your reputation in my eyes, while you are listening to what I have to tell you.”
Saying these words, I took her by the hand and made her sit close by me; then, breaking it to her as gently and gradually as possible, I told her all that had happened at the red-brick house since the evening when she left the dinner-table, and we exchanged our parting look at the dining-room door.
It was almost as great a trial to me to speak as it was to her to hear. She suffered so violently, felt such evident misery33 of shame and terror, while I was relating the strange events which had occurred in her absence, that I once or twice stopped in alarm, and almost repented35 my boldness in telling her the truth. However, fair-dealing with her, cruel as it might seem at the time, was the best and safest course for the future. How could I expect her to put all her trust in me if I began by deceiving her—if I fell into prevarications and excuses at the very outset of our renewal36 of intercourse37? I went on desperately38 to the end, taking a hopeful view of the most hopeless circumstances, and making my narrative39 as mercifully short as possible.
When I had done, the poor girl, in the extremity40 of her forlornness and distress41, forgot all the little maidenly42 conventionalities and young-lady-like restraints of everyday life—and, in a burst of natural grief and honest confiding43 helplessness, hid her face on my bosom44, and cried there as if she were a child again, and I was the mother to whom she had been used to look for comfort.
I made no attempt to stop her tears—they were the safest and best vent34 for the violent agitation45 under which she was suffering. I said nothing; words, at such a ti me as that, would only have aggravated46 her distress. All the questions I had to ask; all the proposals I had to make, must, I felt, be put off—no matter at what risk—until some later and calmer hour. There we sat together, with one long unsnuffed candle lighting47 us smokily; with the discordantly-grotesque sound of the housekeeper’s snoring in the front room, mingling48 with the sobs49 of the weeping girl on my bosom. No other noise, great or small, inside the house or out of it, was audible. The summer night looked black and cloudy through the little back window.
I was not much easier in my mind, now that the trial of breaking my bad news to Alicia was over. That stranger who had called at the house an hour before me, weighed on my spirits. It could not have been Doctor Dulcifer. He would have gained admission. Could it be the Bow Street runner, or Screw? I had lost sight of them, it is true; but had they lost sight of me?
Alicia’s grief gradually exhausted50 itself. She feebly raised her head, and, turning it away from me, hid her face. I saw that she was not fit for talking yet, and begged her to go upstairs to the drawing-room and lie down a little. She looked apprehensively51 toward the folding-doors that shut us off from the front parlor.
“Leave Mrs. Baggs to me,” I said. “I want to have a few words with her; and, as soon as you are gone, I’ll make noise enough here to wake her.”
Alicia looked at me inquiringly and amazedly. I did not speak again. Time was now of terrible importance to us—I gently led her to the door.
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1
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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3
conveyances
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| n.传送( conveyance的名词复数 )；运送；表达；运输工具 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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6
Partisanship
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| n. 党派性, 党派偏见 | |
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7
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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8
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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9
hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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10
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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14
prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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15
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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17
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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18
fishy
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| adj. 值得怀疑的 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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21
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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speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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24
exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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30
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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32
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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34
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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repented
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| 对（自己的所为）感到懊悔或忏悔( repent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36
renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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39
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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40
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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41
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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42
maidenly
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| adj. 像处女的, 谨慎的, 稳静的 | |
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43
confiding
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| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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44
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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45
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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46
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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47
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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48
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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49
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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50
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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51
apprehensively
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| adv.担心地 | |
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