WHEN she returned to the house, Miss Garth made no attempt to conceal1 her unfavorable opinion of the stranger in black. His object was, no doubt, to obtain pecuniary2 assistance from Mrs. Vanstone. What the nature of his claim on her might be seemed less intelligible3—unless it was the claim of a poor relation. Had Mrs. Vanstone ever mentioned, in the presence of her daughters, the name of Captain Wragge? Neither of them recollected4 to have heard it before. Had Mrs. Vanstone ever referred to any poor relations who were dependent on her? On the contrary she had mentioned of late years that she doubted having any relations at all who were still living. And yet Captain Wragge had plainly declared that the name on his card would recall “a family matter” to Mrs. Vanstone’s memory. What did it mean? A false statement, on the stranger’s part, without any intelligible reason for making it? Or a second mystery, following close on the heels of the mysterious journey to London?
All the probabilities seemed to point to some hidden connection between the “family affairs” which had taken Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone so suddenly from home and the “family matter” associated with the name of Captain Wragge. Miss Garth’s doubts thronged5 back irresistibly6 on her mind as she sealed her letter to Mrs. Vanstone, with the captain’s card added by way of inclosure.
By return of post the answer arrived.
Always the earliest riser among the ladies of the house, Miss Garth was alone in the breakfast-room when the letter was brought in. Her first glance at its contents convinced her of the necessity of reading it carefully through in retirement7, before any embarrassing questions could be put to her. Leaving a message with the servant requesting Norah to make the tea that morning, she went upstairs at once to the solitude8 and security of her own room.
Mrs. Vanstone’s letter extended to some length. The first part of it referred to Captain Wragge, and entered unreservedly into all necessary explanations relating to the man himself and to the motive9 which had brought him to Combe-Raven.
It appeared from Mrs. Vanstone’s statement that her mother had been twice married. Her mother’s first husband had been a certain Doctor Wragge—a widower10 with young children; and one of those children was now the unmilitary-looking captain, whose address was “Post-office, Bristol.” Mrs. Wragge had left no family by her first husband; and had afterward11 married Mrs. Vanstone’s father. Of that second marriage Mrs. Vanstone herself was the only issue. She had lost both her parents while she was still a young woman; and, in course of years, her mother’s family connections (who were then her nearest surviving relatives) had been one after another removed by death. She was left, at the present writing, without a relation in the world—excepting, perhaps, certain cousins whom she had never seen, and of whose existence even, at the present moment, she possessed12 no positive knowledge.
Under these circumstances, what family claim had Captain Wragge on Mrs. Vanstone?
None whatever. As the son of her mother’s first husband, by that husband’s first wife, not even the widest stretch of courtesy could have included him at any time in the list of Mrs. Vanstone’s most distant relations. Well knowing this (the letter proceeded to say), he had nevertheless persisted in forcing himself upon her as a species of family connection: and she had weakly sanctioned the intrusion, solely13 from the dread14 that he would otherwise introduce himself to Mr. Vanstone’s notice, and take unblushing advantage of Mr. Vanstone’s generosity15. Shrinking, naturally, from allowing her husband to be annoyed, and probably cheated as well, by any person who claimed, however preposterously16, a family connection with herself, it had been her practice, for many years past, to assist the captain from her own purse, on the condition that he should never come near the house, and that he should not presume to make any application whatever to Mr. Vanstone.
Readily admitting the imprudence of this course, Mrs. Vanstone further explained that she had perhaps been the more inclined to adopt it through having been always accustomed, in her early days, to see the captain living now upon one member, and now upon another, of her mother’s family. Possessed of abilities which might have raised him to distinction in almost any career that he could have chosen, he had nevertheless, from his youth upward, been a disgrace to all his relatives. He had been expelled the militia17 regiment18 in which he once held a commission. He had tried one employment after another, and had discreditably failed in all. He had lived on his wits, in the lowest and basest meaning of the phrase. He had married a poor ignorant woman, who had served as a waitress at some low eating-house, who had unexpectedly come into a little money, and whose small inheritance he had mercilessly squandered19 to the last farthing. In plain terms, he was an incorrigible20 scoundrel; and he had now added one more to the list of his many misdemeanors by impudently21 breaking the conditions on which Mrs. Vanstone had hitherto assisted him. She had written at once to the address indicated on his card, in such terms and to such purpose as would prevent him, she hoped and believed, from ever venturing near the house again. Such were the terms in which Mrs. Vanstone concluded that first part of her letter which referred exclusively to Captain Wragge.
Although the statement thus presented implied a weakness in Mrs. Vanstone’s character which Miss Garth, after many years of intimate experience, had never detected, she accepted the explanation as a matter of course; receiving it all the more readily inasmuch as it might, without impropriety, be communicated in substance to appease22 the irritated curiosity of the two young ladies. For this reason especially she perused23 the first half of the letter with an agreeable sense of relief. Far different was the impression produced on her when she advanced to the second half, and when she had read it to the end.
The second part of the letter was devoted24 to the subject of the journey to London.
Mrs. Vanstone began by referring to the long and intimate friendship which had existed between Miss Garth and herself. She now felt it due to that friendship to explain confidentially25 the motive which had induced her to leave home with her husband. Miss Garth had delicately refrained from showing it, but she must naturally have felt, and must still be feeling, great surprise at the mystery in which their departure had been involved; and she must doubtless have asked herself why Mrs. Vanstone should have been associated with family affairs which (in her independent position as to relatives) must necessarily concern Mr. Vanstone alone.
Without touching26 on those affairs, which it was neither desirable nor necessary to do, Mrs. Vanstone then proceeded to say that she would at once set all Miss Garth’s doubts at rest, so far as they related to herself, by one plain acknowledgment. Her object in accompanying her husband to London was to see a certain celebrated27 physician, and to consult him privately28 on a very delicate and anxious matter connected with the state of her health. In plainer terms still, this anxious matter meant nothing less than the possibility that she might again become a mother.
When the doubt had first suggested itself she had treated it as a mere29 delusion30. The long interval31 that had elapsed since the birth of her last child; the serious illness which had afflicted32 her after the death of that child in infancy33; the time of life at which she had now arrived—all inclined her to dismiss the idea as soon as it arose in her mind. It had returned again and again in spite of her. She had felt the necessity of consulting the highest medical authority; and had shrunk, at the same time, from alarming her daughters by summoning a London physician to the house. The medical opinion, sought under the circumstances already mentioned, had now been obtained. Her doubt was confirmed as a certainty; and the result, which might be expected to take place toward the end of the summer, was, at her age and with her constitutional peculiarities34, a subject for serious future anxiety, to say the least of it. The physician had done his best to encourage her; but she had understood the drift of his questions more clearly than he supposed, and she knew that he looked to the future with more than ordinary doubt.
Having disclosed these particulars, Mrs. Vanstone requested that they might be kept a secret between her correspondent and herself. She had felt unwilling35 to mention her suspicions to Miss Garth, until those suspicions had been confirmed—and she now recoiled36, with even greater reluctance37, from allowing her daughters to be in any way alarmed about her. It would be best to dismiss the subject for the present, and to wait hopefully till the summer came. In the meantime they would all, she trusted, be happily reunited on the twenty-third of the month, which Mr. Vanstone had fixed38 on as the day for their return. With this intimation, and with the customary messages, the letter, abruptly39 and confusedly, came to an end.
For the first few minutes, a natural sympathy for Mrs. Vanstone was the only feeling of which Miss Garth was conscious after she had laid the letter down. Ere long, however, there rose obscurely on her mind a doubt which perplexed40 and distressed41 her. Was the explanation which she had just read really as satisfactory and as complete as it professed42 to be? Testing it plainly by facts, surely not.
On the morning of her departure, Mrs. Vanstone had unquestionably left the house in good spirits. At her age, and in her state of health, were good spirits compatible with such an errand to a physician as the errand on which she was bent43? Then, again, had that letter from New Orleans, which had necessitated44 Mr. Vanstone’s departure, no share in occasioning his wife’s departure as well? Why, otherwise, had she looked up so eagerly the moment her daughter mentioned the postmark. Granting the avowed45 motive for her journey—did not her manner, on the morning when the letter was opened, and again on the morning of departure, suggest the existence of some other motive which her letter kept concealed46?
If it was so, the conclusion that followed was a very distressing47 one. Mrs. Vanstone, feeling what was due to her long friendship with Miss Garth, had apparently48 placed the fullest confidence in her, on one subject, by way of unsuspiciously maintaining the strictest reserve toward her on another. Naturally frank and straightforward49 in all her own dealings, Miss Garth shrank from plainly pursuing her doubts to this result: a want of loyalty50 toward her tried and valued friend seemed implied in the mere dawning of it on her mind.
She locked up the letter in her desk; roused herself resolutely51 to attend to the passing interests of the day; and went downstairs again to the breakfast-room. Amid many uncertainties52, this at least was clear, Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone were coming back on the twenty-third of the month. Who could say what new revelations might not come back with them?
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1
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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pecuniary
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| adj.金钱的；金钱上的 | |
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intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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7
retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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12
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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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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15
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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preposterously
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| adv.反常地；荒谬地；荒谬可笑地；不合理地 | |
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militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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squandered
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| v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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incorrigible
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| adj.难以纠正的，屡教不改的 | |
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impudently
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22
appease
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| v.安抚，缓和，平息，满足 | |
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perused
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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24
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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35
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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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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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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41
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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42
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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43
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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44
necessitated
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| 使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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45
avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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46
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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47
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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48
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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49
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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50
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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51
resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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52
uncertainties
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| 无把握( uncertainty的名词复数 )； 不确定； 变化不定； 无把握、不确定的事物 | |
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