Three persons occupied the carriage: Lady Holchester, her eldest1 son (now Lord Holchester), and Sir Patrick Lundie.
“Will you wait in the carriage, Sir Patrick?” said Julius. “Or will you come in?”
“I will wait. If I can be of the least use to her,, send for me instantly. In the mean time don’t forget to make the stipulation2 which I have suggested. It is the one certain way of putting your brother’s real feeling in this matter to the test.”
The servant had rung the bell without producing any result. He rang again. Lady Holchester put a question to Sir Patrick.
“If I have an opportunity of speaking to my son’s wife alone,” she said, “have you any message to give?”
Sir Patrick produced a little note.
“May I appeal to your ladyship’s kindness to give her this?” The gate was opened by the servant-girl, as Lady Holchester took the note. “Remember,” reiterated3 Sir Patrick, earnestly “if I can be of the smallest service to her—don’t think of my position with Mr. Delamayn. Send for me at once.”
Julius and his mother were conducted into the drawing-room. The girl informed them that her master had gone up stairs to lie down, and that he would be with them immediately.
Both mother and son were too anxious to speak. Julius wandered uneasily about the room. Some books attracted his notice on a table in the corner—four dirty, greasy4 volumes, with a slip of paper projecting from the leaves of one of them, and containing this inscription5, “With Mr. Perry’s respects.” Julius opened the volume. It was the ghastly popular record of Criminal Trials in England, called the Newgate Calendar. Julius showed it to his mother.
“Geoffrey’s taste in literature!” he said, with a faint smile.
Lady Holchester signed to him to put the book back.
“You have seen Geoffrey’s wife already—have you not?” she asked.
There was no contempt now in her tone when she referred to Anne. The impression produced on her by her visit to the cottage, earlier in the day, associated Geoffrey’s wife with family anxieties of no trivial kind. She might still (for Mrs. Glenarm’s sake) be a woman to be disliked—but she was no longer a woman to be despised.
“I saw her when she came to Swanhaven,” said Julius. “I agree with Sir Patrick in thinking her a very interesting person.”
“What did Sir Patrick say to you about Geoffrey this afternoon—while I was out of the room?”
“Only what he said to you. He thought their position toward each other here a very deplorable one. He considered that the reasons were serious for our interfering6 immediately.”
“Sir Patrick’s own opinion, Julius, goes farther than that.”
“He has not acknowledged it, that I know of.”
“How can he acknowledge it—to us?”
The door opened, and Geoffrey entered the room.
Julius eyed him closely as they shook hands. His eyes were bloodshot; his face was flushed; his utterance7 was thick—the look of him was the look of a man who had been drinking hard.
“Well?” he said to his mother. “What brings you back?”
“Julius has a proposal to make to you,” Lady Holchester answered. “I approve of it; and I have come with him.”
Geoffrey turned to his brother.
“What can a rich man like you want with a poor devil like me?” he asked.
“I want to do you justice, Geoffrey—if you will help me, by meeting me half-way. Our mother has told you about the will?”
“I’m not down for a half-penny in the will. I expected as much. Go on.”
“You are wrong—you are down in it. There is liberal provision made for you in a codicil8. Unhappily, my father died without signing it. It is needless to say that I consider it binding9 on me for all that. I am ready to do for you what your father would have done for you. And I only ask for one concession10 in return.”
“What may that be?”
“You are living here very unhappily, Geoffrey, with your wife.”
“Who says so? I don’t, for one.”
Julius laid his hand kindly11 on his brother’s arm.
“Don’t trifle with such a serious matter as this,” he said. “Your marriage is, in every sense of the word, a misfortune—not only to you but to your wife. It is impossible that you can live together. I have come here to ask you to consent to a separation. Do that—and the provision made for you in the unsigned codicil is yours. What do you say?”
Geoffrey shook his brother’s hand off his arm.
“I say—No!” he answered.
Lady Holchester interfered13 for the first time.
“Your brother’s generous offer deserves a better answer than that,” she said.
“My answer,” reiterated Geoffrey, “is—No!”
He sat between them with his clenched14 fists resting on his knees—absolutely impenetrable to any thing that either of them could say.
“In your situation,” said Julius, “a refusal is sheer madness. I won’t accept it.”
“Do as you like about that. My mind’s made up. I won’t let my wife be taken away from me. Here she stays.”
The brutal15 tone in which he had made that reply roused Lady Holchester’s indignation.
“Take care!” she said. “You are not only behaving with the grossest ingratitude16 toward your brother—you are forcing a suspicion into your mother’s mind. You have some motive17 that you are hiding from us.”
He turned on his mother with a sudden ferocity which made Julius spring to his feet. The next instant his eyes were on the ground, and the devil that possessed18 him was quiet again.
“Some motive I’m hiding from you?” he repeated, with his head down, and his utterance thicker than ever. “I’m ready to have my motive posted all over London, if you like. I’m fond of her.”
He looked up as he said the last words. Lady Holchester turned away her head—recoiling from her own son. So overwhelming was the shock inflicted19 on her that even the strongly rooted prejudice which Mrs. Glenarm had implanted in her mind yielded to it. At that moment she absolutely pitied Anne!
“Poor creature!” said Lady Holchester.
He took instant offense20 at those two words. “I won’t have my wife pitied by any body.” With that reply, he dashed into the passage; and called out, “Anne! come down!”
Her soft voice answered; her light footfall was heard on the stairs. She came into the room. Julius advanced, took her hand, and held it kindly in his. “We are having a little family discussion,” he said, trying to give her confidence. “And Geoffrey is getting hot over it, as usual.”
Geoffrey appealed sternly to his mother.
“Look at her!” he said. “Is she starved? Is she in rags? Is she covered with bruises21?” He turned to Anne. “They have come here to propose a separation. They both believe I hate you. I don’t hate you. I’m a good Christian22. I owe it to you that I’m cut out of my father’s will. I forgive you that. I owe it to you that I’ve lost the chance of marrying a woman with ten thousand a year. I forgive you that. I’m not a man who does things by halves. I said it should be my endeavor to make you a good husband. I said it was my wish to make it up. Well! I am as good as my word. And what’s the consequence? I am insulted. My mother comes here, and my brother comes here—and they offer me money to part from you. Money be hanged! I’ll be beholden to nobody. I’ll get my own living. Shame on the people who interfere12 between man and wife! Shame!—that’s what I say—shame!”
Anne looked, for an explanation, from her husband to her husband’s mother.
“Have you proposed a separation between us?” she asked.
“Yes—on terms of the utmost advantage to my son; arranged with every possible consideration toward you. Is there any objection on your side?”
“Oh, Lady Holchester! is it necessary to ask me? What does he say?”
“He has refused.”
“Refused!”
“Yes,” said Geoffrey. “I don’t go back from my word; I stick to what I said this morning. It’s my endeavor to make you a good husband. It’s my wish to make it up.” He paused, and then added his last reason: “I’m fond of you.”
Their eyes met as he said it to her. Julius felt Anne’s hand suddenly tighten23 round his. The desperate grasp of the frail24 cold fingers, the imploring25 terror in the gentle sensitive face as it slowly turned his way, said to him as if in words, “Don’t leave me friendless to-night!”
“If you both stop here till domesday,” said Geoffrey, “you’ll get nothing more out of me. You have had my reply.”
With that, he seated himself doggedly26 in a corner of the room; waiting—ostentatiously waiting—for his mother and his brother to take their leave. The position was serious. To argue the matter with him that night was hopeless. To invite Sir Patrick’s interference would only be to provoke his savage27 temper to a new outbreak. On the other hand, to leave the helpless woman, after what had passed, without another effort to befriend her, was, in her situation, an act of downright inhumanity, and nothing less. Julius took the one way out of the difficulty that was left—the one way worthy28 of him as a compassionate29 and an honorable man.
“We will drop it for to-night, Geoffrey,” he said. “But I am not the less resolved, in spite of all that you have said, to return to the subject to-morrow. It would save me some inconvenience—a second journey here from town, and then going back again to my engagements—if I staid with you to-night. Can you give me a bed?”
A look flashed on him from Anne, which thanked him as no words could have thanked him.
“Give you a bed?” repeated Geoffrey. He checked himself, on the point of refusing. His mother was watching him; his wife was watching him—and his wife knew that the room above them was a room to spare. “All right!” he resumed, in another tone, with his eye on his mother. “There’s my empty room up stairs. Have it, if you like. You won’t find I’ve changed my mind to-morrow—but that’s your look-out. Stop here, if the fancy takes you. I’ve no objection. It don’t matter to Me.—Will you trust his lordship under my roof?” he added, addressing his mother. “I might have some motive that I’m hiding from you, you know!” Without waiting for an answer, he turned to Anne. “Go and tell old Dummy30 to put the sheets on the bed. Say there’s a live lord in the house—she’s to send in something devilish good for supper!” He burst fiercely into a forced laugh. Lady Holchester rose at the moment when Anne was leaving the room. “I shall not be here when you return,” she said. “Let me bid you good-night.”
She shook hands with Anne—giving her Sir Patrick’s note, unseen, at the same moment. Anne left the room. Without addressing another word to her second son, Lady Holchester beckoned31 to Julius to give her his arm. “You have acted nobly toward your brother,” she said to him. “My one comfort and my one hope, Julius, are in you.” They went out together to the gate, Geoffrey following them with the key in his hand. “Don’t be too anxious,” Julius whispered to his mother. “I will keep the drink out of his way to-night—and I will bring you a better account of him to-morrow. Explain every thing to Sir Patrick as you go home.”
He handed Lady Holchester into the carriage; and re-entered, leaving Geoffrey to lock the gate. The brothers returned in silence to the cottage. Julius had concealed32 it from his mother—but he was seriously uneasy in secret. Naturally prone33 to look at all things on their brighter side, he could place no hopeful interpretation34 on what Geoffrey had said and done that night. The conviction that he was deliberately35 acting36 a part, in his present relations with his wife, for some abominable37 purpose of his own, had rooted itself firmly in Julius. For the first time in his experience of his brother, the pecuniary38 consideration was not the uppermost consideration in Geoffrey’s mind. They went back into the drawing-room. “What will you have to drink?” said Geoffrey.
“Nothing.”
“You won’t keep me company over a drop of brandy-and-water?”
“No. You have had enough brandy-and-water.”
After a moment of frowning self-consideration in the glass, Geoffrey abruptly39 agreed with Julius “I look like it,” he said. “I’ll soon put that right.” He disappeared, and returned with a wet towel tied round his head. “What will you do while the women are getting your bed ready? Liberty Hall here. I’ve taken to cultivating my mind—-I’m a reformed character, you know, now I’m a married man. You do what you like. I shall read.”
He turned to the side-table, and, producing the volumes of the Newgate Calendar, gave one to his brother. Julius handed it back again.
“You won’t cultivate your mind,” he said, “with such a book as that. Vile40 actions recorded in vile English, make vile reading, Geoffrey, in every sense of the word.”
“It will do for me. I don’t know good English when I see it.”
With that frank acknowledgment—to which the great majority of his companions at school and college might have subscribed41 without doing the slightest injustice42 to the present state of English education—Geoffrey drew his chair to the table, and opened one of the volumes of his record of crime.
The evening newspaper was lying on the sofa. Julius took it up, and seated himself opposite to his brother. He noticed, with some surprise, that Geoffrey appeared to have a special object in consulting his book. Instead of beginning at the first page, he ran the leaves through his fingers, and turned them down at certain places, before he entered on his reading. If Julius had looked over his brother’s shoulder, instead of only looking at him across the table, he would have seen that Geoffrey passed by all the lighter43 crimes reported in the Calendar, and marked for his own private reading the cases of murder only.
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收听单词发音
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1
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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2
stipulation
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| n.契约，规定，条文；条款说明 | |
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reiterated
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| 反复地说，重申( reiterate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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4
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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6
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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7
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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8
codicil
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| n.遗嘱的附录 | |
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9
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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10
concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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11
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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12
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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13
interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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14
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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16
ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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17
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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18
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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19
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20
offense
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| n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪 | |
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21
bruises
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| n.瘀伤，伤痕，擦伤( bruise的名词复数 ) | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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tighten
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| v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧 | |
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24
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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27
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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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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compassionate
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| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
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dummy
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| n.假的东西；(哄婴儿的)橡皮奶头 | |
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31
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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33
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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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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37
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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38
pecuniary
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| adj.金钱的；金钱上的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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41
subscribed
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| v.捐助( subscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；签署，题词；订阅；同意 | |
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42
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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43
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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