On entering the philosopher’s study that morning, Mr. Vanstone had found him still dawdling1 over his late breakfast, with an open letter by his side, in place of the book which, on other occasions, lay ready to his hand at meal-times. He held up the letter the moment his visitor came into the room, and abruptly2 opened the conversation by asking Mr. Vanstone if his nerves were in good order, and if he felt himself strong enough for the shock of an overwhelming surprise.
“Nerves!” repeated Mr. Vanstone. “Thank God, I know nothing about my nerves. If you have got anything to tell me, shock or no shock, out with it on the spot.”
Mr. Clare held the letter a little higher, and frowned at his visitor across the breakfast-table. “What have I always told you?” he asked, with his sourest solemnity of look and manner.
“A great deal more than I could ever keep in my head,” answered Mr. Vanstone.
“In your presence and out of it,” continued Mr. Clare, “I have always maintained that the one important phenomenon presented by modern society is—the enormous prosperity of Fools. Show me an individual Fool, and I will show you an aggregate3 Society which gives that highly-favored personage nine chances out of ten—and grudges4 the tenth to the wisest man in existence. Look where you will, in every high place there sits an Ass5, settled beyond the reach of all the greatest intellects in this world to pull him down. Over our whole social system, complacent6 Imbecility rules supreme—snuffs out the searching light of Intelligence with total impunity—and hoots7, owl-like, in answer to every form of protest, See how well we all do in the dark! One of these days that audacious assertion will be practically contradicted, and the whole rotten system of modern society will come down with a crash.”
“God forbid!” cried Mr. Vanstone, looking about him as if the crash was coming already.
“With a crash!” repeated Mr. Clare. “There is my theory, in few words. Now for the remarkable8 application of it which this letter suggests. Here is my lout9 of a boy—”
“You don’t mean that Frank has got another chance?” exclaimed Mr. Vanstone.
“Here is this perfectly10 hopeless booby, Frank,” pursued the philosopher. “He has never done anything in his life to help himself, and, as a necessary consequence, Society is in a conspiracy11 to carry him to the top of the tree. He has hardly had time to throw away that chance you gave him before this letter comes, and puts the ball at his foot for the second time. My rich cousin (who is intellectually fit to be at the tail of the family, and who is, therefore, as a matter of course, at the head of it) has been good enough to remember my existence; and has offered his influence to serve my eldest12 boy. Read his letter, and then observe the sequence of events. My rich cousin is a booby who thrives on landed property; he has done something for another booby who thrives on Politics, who knows a third booby who thrives on Commerce, who can do something for a fourth booby, thriving at present on nothing, whose name is Frank. So the mill goes. So the cream of all human rewards is sipped13 in endless succession by the Fools. I shall pack Frank off to-morrow. In course of time he’ll come back again on our hands, like a bad shilling; more chances will fall in his way, as a necessary consequence of his meritorious14 imbecility. Years will go on—I may not live to see it, no more may you—it doesn’t matter; Frank’s future is equally certain either way—put him into the army, the Church, politics, what you please, and let him drift: he’ll end in being a general, a bishop15, or a minister of State, by dint16 of the great modern qualification of doing nothing whatever to deserve his place.” With this summary of his son’s worldly prospects18, Mr. Clare tossed the letter contemptuously across the table and poured himself out another cup of tea.
Mr. Vanstone read the letter with eager interest and pleasure. It was written in a tone of somewhat elaborate cordiality; but the practical advantages which it placed at Frank’s disposal were beyond all doubt. The writer had the means of using a friend’s interest—interest of no ordinary kind—with a great Mercantile Firm in the City; and he had at once exerted this influence in favor of Mr. Clare’s eldest boy. Frank would be received in the office on a very different footing from the footing of an ordinary clerk; he would be “pushed on” at every available opportunity; and the first “good thing” the House had to offer, either at home or abroad, would be placed at his disposal. If he possessed19 fair abilities and showed common diligence in exercising them, his fortune was made; and the sooner he was sent to London to begin the better for his own interests it would be.
“Wonderful news!” cried Mr. Vanstone, returning the letter. “I’m delighted—I must go back and tell them at home. This is fifty times the chance that mine was. What the deuce do you mean by abusing Society? Society has behaved uncommonly20 well, in my opinion. Where’s Frank?”
“Lurking,” said Mr. Clare. “It is one of the intolerable peculiarities22 of louts that they always lurk21. I haven’t seen my lout this morning. It you meet with him anywhere, give him a kick, and say I want him.”
Mr. Clare’s opinion of his son’s habits might have been expressed more politely as to form; but, as to substance, it happened, on that particular morning, to be perfectly correct. After leaving Magdalen, Frank had waited in the shrubbery, at a safe distance, on the chance that she might detach herself from her sister’s company, and join him again. Mr. Vanstone’s appearance immediately on Norah’s departure, instead of encouraging him to show himself, had determined23 him on returning to the cottage. He walked back discontentedly; and so fell into his father’s clutches, totally unprepared for the pending24 announcement, in that formidable quarter, of his departure for London.
In the meantime, Mr. Vanstone had communicated his news—in the first place, to Magdalen, and afterward25, on getting back to the house, to his wife and Miss Garth. He was too unobservant a man to notice that Magdalen looked unaccountably startled, and Miss Garth unaccountably relieved, by his announcement of Frank’s good fortune. He talked on about it, quite unsuspiciously, until the luncheon-bell rang—and then, for the first time, he noticed Norah’s absence. She sent a message downstairs, after they had assembled at the table, to say that a headache was keeping her in her own room. When Miss Garth went up shortly afterward to communicate the news about Frank, Norah appeared, strangely enough, to feel very little relieved by hearing it. Mr. Francis Clare had gone away on a former occasion (she remarked), and had come back. He might come back again, and sooner than they any of them thought for. She said no more on the subject than this: she made no reference to what had taken place in the shrubbery. Her unconquerable reserve seemed to have strengthened its hold on her since the outburst of the morning. She met Magdalen, later in the day, as if nothing had happened: no formal reconciliation26 took place between them. It was one of Norah’s peculiarities to shrink from all reconciliations27 that were openly ratified28, and to take her shy refuge in reconciliations that were silently implied. Magdalen saw plainly, in her look and manner, that she had made her first and last protest. Whether the motive29 was pride, or sullenness30, or distrust of herself, or despair of doing good, the result was not to be mistaken—Norah had resolved on remaining passive for the future.
Later in the afternoon, Mr. Vanstone suggested a drive to his eldest daughter, as the best remedy for her headache. She readily consented to accompany her father; who thereupon proposed, as usual, that Magdalen should join them. Magdalen was nowhere to be found. For the second time that day she had wandered into the grounds by herself. On this occasion, Miss Garth—who, after adopting Norah’s opinions, had passed from the one extreme of over-looking Frank altogether, to the other extreme of believing him capable of planning an elopement at five minutes’ notice—volunteered to set forth31 immediately, and do her best to find the missing young lady. After a prolonged absence, she returned unsuccessful—with the strongest persuasion32 in her own mind that Magdalen and Frank had secretly met one another somewhere, but without having discovered the smallest fragment of evidence to confirm her suspicions. By this time the carriage was at the door, and Mr. Vanstone was unwilling33 to wait any longer. He and Norah drove away together; and Mrs. Vanstone and Miss Garth sat at home over their work.
In half an hour more, Magdalen composedly walked into the room. She was pale and depressed34. She received Miss Garth’s remonstrances35 with a weary inattention; explained carelessly that she had been wandering in the wood; took up some books, and put them down again; sighed impatiently, and went away upstairs to her own room.
“I think Magdalen is feeling the reaction, after yesterday,” said Mrs. Vanstone, quietly. “It is just as we thought. Now the theatrical36 amusements are all over, she is fretting37 for more.”
Here was an opportunity of letting in the light of truth on Mrs. Vanstone’s mind, which was too favorable to be missed. Miss Garth questioned her conscience, saw her chance, and took it on the spot.
“You forget,” she rejoined, “that a certain neighbor of ours is going away to-morrow. Shall I tell you the truth? Magdalen is fretting over the departure of Francis Clare.”
Mrs. Vanstone looked up from her work with a gentle, smiling surprise.
“Surely not?” she said. “It is natural enough that Frank should be attracted by Magdalen; but I can’t think that Magdalen returns the feeling. Frank is so very unlike her; so quiet and undemonstrative; so dull and helpless, poor fellow, in some things. He is handsome, I know, but he is so singularly unlike Magdalen, that I can’t think it possible—I can’t indeed.”
“My dear good lady!” cried Miss Garth, in great amazement38; “do you really suppose that people fall in love with each other on account of similarities in their characters? In the vast majority of cases, they do just the reverse. Men marry the very last women, and women the very last men, whom their friends would think it possible they could care about. Is there any phrase that is oftener on all our lips than ‘What can have made Mr. So-and-So marry that woman?’—or ‘How could Mrs. So-and-So throw herself away on that man?’ Has all your experience of the world never yet shown you that girls take perverse39 fancies for men who are totally unworthy of them?”
“Very true,” said Mrs. Vanstone, composedly. “I forgot that. Still it seems unaccountable, doesn’t it?”
“Unaccountable, because it happens every day!” retorted Miss Garth, good-humoredly. “I know a great many excellent people who reason against plain experience in the same way—who read the newspapers in the morning, and deny in the evening that there is any romance for writers or painters to work upon in modern life. Seriously, Mrs. Vanstone, you may take my word for it—thanks to those wretched theatricals40, Magdalen is going the way with Frank that a great many young ladies have gone before her. He is quite unworthy of her; he is, in almost every respect, her exact opposite—and, without knowing it herself, she has fallen in love with him on that very account. She is resolute41 and impetuous, clever and domineering; she is not one of those model women who want a man to look up to, and to protect them—her beau-ideal (though she may not think it herself) is a man she can henpeck. Well! one comfort is, there are far better men, even of that sort, to be had than Frank. It’s a mercy he is going away, before we have more trouble with them, and before any serious mischief42 is done.”
“Poor Frank!” said Mrs. Vanstone, smiling compassionately43. “We have known him since he was in jackets, and Magdalen in short frocks. Don’t let us give him up yet. He may do better this second time.”
Miss Garth looked up in astonishment44.
“And suppose he does better?” she asked. “What then?”
Mrs. Vanstone cut off a loose thread in her work, and laughed outright45.
“My good friend,” she said, “there is an old farmyard proverb which warns us not to count our chickens before they are hatched. Let us wait a little before we count ours.”
It was not easy to silence Miss Garth, when she was speaking under the influence of a strong conviction; but this reply closed her lips. She resumed her work, and looked, and thought, unutterable things.
Mrs. Vanstone’s behavior was certainly remarkable under the circumstances. Here, on one side, was a girl—with great personal attractions, with rare pecuniary46 prospects, with a social position which might have justified47 the best gentleman in the neighborhood in making her an offer of marriage—perversely casting herself away on a penniless idle young fellow, who had failed at his first start in life, and who even if he succeeded in his second attempt, must be for years to come in no position to marry a young lady of fortune on equal terms. And there, on the other side, was that girl’s mother, by no means dismayed at the prospect17 of a connection which was, to say the least of it, far from desirable; by no means certain, judging her by her own words and looks, that a marriage between Mr. Vanstone’s daughter and Mr. Clare’s son might not prove to be as satisfactory a result of the intimacy48 between the two young people as the parents on both sides could possibly wish for!
It was perplexing in the extreme. It was almost as unintelligible49 as that past mystery—that forgotten mystery now—of the journey to London.
In the evening, Frank made his appearance, and announced that his father had mercilessly sentenced him to leave Combe-Raven by the parliamentary train the next morning. He mentioned this circumstance with an air of sentimental50 resignation; and listened to Mr. Vanstone’s boisterous51 rejoicings over his new prospects with a mild and mute surprise. His gentle melancholy52 of look and manner greatly assisted his personal advantages. In his own effeminate way he was more handsome than ever that evening. His soft brown eyes wandered about the room with a melting tenderness; his hair was beautifully brushed; his delicate hands hung over the arms of his chair with a languid grace. He looked like a convalescent Apollo. Never, on any previous occasion, had he practiced more successfully the social art which he habitually53 cultivated—the art of casting himself on society in the character of a well-bred Incubus54, and conferring an obligation on his fellow-creatures by allowing them to sit under him. It was undeniably a dull evening. All the talking fell to the share of Mr. Vanstone and Miss Garth. Mrs. Vanstone was habitually silent; Norah kept herself obstinately55 in the background; Magdalen was quiet and undemonstrative beyond all former precedent56. From first to last, she kept rigidly57 on her guard. The few meaning looks that she cast on Frank flashed at him like lightning, and were gone before any one else could see them. Even when she brought him his tea; and when, in doing so, her self-control gave way under the temptation which no woman can resist—the temptation of touching58 the man she loves—even then, she held the saucer so dexterously59 that it screened her hand. Frank’s self-possession was far less steadily60 disciplined: it only lasted as long as he remained passive. When he rose to go; when he felt the warm, clinging pressure of Magdalen’s fingers round his hand, and the lock of her hair which she slipped into it at the same moment, he became awkward and confused. He might have betrayed Magdalen and betrayed himself, but for Mr. Vanstone, who innocently covered his retreat by following him out, and patting him on the shoulder all the way. “God bless you, Frank!” cried the friendly voice that never had a harsh note in it for anybody. “Your fortune’s waiting for you. Go in, my boy—go in and win.”
“Yes,” said Frank. “Thank you. It will be rather difficult to go in and win, at first. Of course, as you have always told me, a man’s business is to conquer his difficulties, and not to talk about them. At the same time, I wish I didn’t feel quite so loose as I do in my figures. It’s discouraging to feel loose in one’s figures.—Oh, yes; I’ll write and tell you how I get on. I’m very much obliged by your kindness, and very sorry I couldn’t succeed with the engineering. I think I should have liked engineering better than trade. It can’t be helped now, can it? Thank you, again. Good-by.”
So he drifted away into the misty61 commercial future—as aimless, as helpless, as gentleman-like as ever.
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1
dawdling
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| adj.闲逛的，懒散的v.混（时间）( dawdle的现在分词 ) | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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aggregate
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| adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合 | |
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grudges
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| 不满，怨恨，妒忌( grudge的名词复数 ) | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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hoots
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| 咄，啐 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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lout
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| n.粗鄙的人；举止粗鲁的人 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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meritorious
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| adj.值得赞赏的 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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dint
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| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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pending
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| prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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reconciliation
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| n.和解，和谐，一致 | |
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reconciliations
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| 和解( reconciliation的名词复数 )； 一致； 勉强接受； （争吵等的）止息 | |
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ratified
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| v.批准，签认（合约等）( ratify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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sullenness
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| n. 愠怒, 沉闷, 情绪消沉 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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remonstrances
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| n.抱怨，抗议( remonstrance的名词复数 ) | |
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theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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theatricals
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| n.（业余性的）戏剧演出，舞台表演艺术；职业演员；戏剧的( theatrical的名词复数 )；剧场的；炫耀的；戏剧性的 | |
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resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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42
mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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43
compassionately
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| adv.表示怜悯地，有同情心地 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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pecuniary
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| adj.金钱的；金钱上的 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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48
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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49
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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50
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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52
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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53
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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54
incubus
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| n.负担；恶梦 | |
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55
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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56
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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57
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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58
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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59
dexterously
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| adv.巧妙地，敏捷地 | |
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60
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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61
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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