‘It seems strange to think that it is the last night,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with not inappropriate reflectiveness. ‘How many things have happened to us within these walls, Millicent! And perhaps we may never enter them again.’
‘I hope not, I am sure,’ said her daughter; ‘a more dreary8 set of rooms I never was in. If we cannot make out something better than this, I should never wish to come back at all.’
‘Of course we must both wish never to come back at all,’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘I trust your next home, my dear, may be of a totally different kind. If I could but live to see my child settled, and enjoy the change a little,’ the mother added, putting her hands softly together, ‘I should have all I want in this world.’
‘I don’t see that, mamma,’ said Millicent. ‘You are old, it is true; but I think you want quite as much as I do in the world. You are very fond of being comfortable;—most people are, I suppose. And then you can get the good of things without the{181} trouble;—I should have more pleasure, perhaps,—if I ever come to anything,—but then I shall have all the trouble as well.’
‘The trouble of looking nice and making yourself agreeable! I don’t think there is much in that,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a little contempt. ‘The serious business,—managing matters, and getting introductions, and all that,—always falls to my share.’
‘I am sure I wish we were done with it all;—I hate it. I wish I had been brought up to be a governess,’ said Millicent, ‘or a dressmaker, or something. I should not have liked the work; but then one would not have had to be thinking always what would please some man.’
‘You don’t find it so difficult to please them,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a little gentle maternal9 flattery, such as was necessary now and then to keep the sullen10 shade,—which spoiled it,—off Millicent’s beautiful face.
‘I wonder I don’t hate them,’ cried the young woman, ‘after all I have gone through! I am sure it would not be half so hard to go in for examinations and things like poor Fitzgerald. I don’t see how a girl can be good if she were to try,—always brought up to think she may get to be rich in a moment, like a gambler! I declare, mamma, I will go to the gaming-place in Homburg and try.’
‘I hope, Millicent, you will not be such a fool!’ cried her mother, ‘after all the pains I have taken to{182} keep respectable,—paying bills many a time when it was like taking my heart’s blood; and you know, among the English, it’s only disreputable people who play.’
‘It comes to just the same thing,’ said Millicent; ‘and I tell you, mamma, a girl has no chance to be good, brought up like that to play for a man for his money. I hate the men! Let us go and play for the money; it will be far better; and then nobody like Ben Renton can come and look in one’s face, and make one feel like,—like——’
‘Like what?’ cried Mrs. Tracy. ‘Millicent, I have told you again and again that you are falling in love with that boy.’
‘Not such a fool as that,’ said Millicent, with a faint colour on her averted11 face. ‘Like a swindler; that is what I meant. Why should he care for me? It was not him I was thinking of;—and then to think it should all come to nothing, after one felt so sure!’
‘My dear, I know it was a great disappointment,’ said the mother, with soft sympathy. ‘I don’t wonder you felt it; but there are better than him in the world, after all. I would not vex12 myself about what’s past. You will enjoy the change, and your spirits will come back, and you’ll find something better before long.’ Millicent did not answer; she made a little impatient movement with her head when her mother spoke13 of change, and that sullen cloud, which awoke an incipient14 line in her forehead and{183} frightened Mrs. Tracy, came over her brow. ‘You don’t know what work is,’ resumed the mother. ‘Fancy what it would be to sit still at your needle for hours at a time! But to be sure it is all nonsense, and you don’t mean it. I don’t say it is not of more importance to us than to most people: but of course it’s every young woman’s aim to be married. It’s all nonsense what people talk of women’s work. You may depend upon it, Millicent, it’s only ugly women and old women that talk that stuff. No man can bear to hear it. They like you a great deal best as you are.’
‘As if I cared!’ cried Millicent, with scorn. ‘They are such fools! Just think of Ben Renton,—doing nothing, and losing his time, and never seeing through us all these months, and going on with his nonsense to me, as if I was one to understand it! And all because I’m rather pretty!’ she said with disgust. ‘It is enough to make one sick. I wonder I don’t hate them or despise them,—they are such fools!’
‘Millicent, you are out of temper,’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘I wish you would not talk in that way. If anybody were to hear you——’
‘I wish they could all hear me!’ said Millicent, growing fiercer. ‘Let’s go and gamble at Homburg, mamma. I think I should like it I think I should be lucky. Do I care for a stupid man to come and mumble15 over my hands? Bah!’ cried Millicent,{184} looking at her own white, rose-tipped fingers, which Ben Renton, in his passion, had kissed. She looked at them with a certain disgust; but it was not Ben who disgusted her. Perhaps in that sudden fit of sullenness16 and temper she was nearer the purer world than ever she had been before in her life. Other men would kiss those hands,—other voices would tell that same tale in her ear,—while she sat and smiled and considered whether the suitor was rich enough; and, oh, heaven! why was it all? Because she was rather pretty, and had no heart nor womanly soul in her,—and because they were such fools!
Something like this Millicent thought as she sat with her elbows on the table, leaning her head in her hands. It was not that any impulse in favour of her ‘sex’ moved her altogether unintellectual, unspeculative being. She did not care a straw for the sex. Women were not perhaps ‘such fools’ as men in this particular way. Beyond that she had never thought on the subject. ‘How nice it would be to have money of one’s own!’ she said; ‘how nice it would be to win it over a table with no trouble,—and have all the excitement in the bargain! And if one lost, one could always begin again; whereas with men,—I don’t believe I shall ever marry well,’ she said, suddenly. ‘If I marry at all it will be some adventurer who will take us in. Now, mamma, you’ll remember what I say; I feel sure of it in my heart.{185}’
‘I never saw you in such a dreadful temper,’ said her mother. ‘Is it my fault that you go on at me? But I know what is the reason. You are in love with this fellow that has not a penny. I knew how it would be.’
‘In love with him!’ said Millicent. ‘I wonder if I am in love with him! If I were I could not think him such a fool. Poor fellow! he’s gone and robbed himself to send you to the baths, and you don’t want the baths any more than he does. He ought to marry Mary Westbury and settle down, and get back his money. Most likely he would get back his money if he married Mary. And yet I think I should hate her too; but that would be for the sake of the Manor17, and not for Ben. I had set my heart on the Manor, and that lovely house in Berkeley Square. Oh, don’t speak to me! It’s too bad! I can’t bear it!’ cried Millicent, suddenly hiding her face in her hands.
Thus confused, not knowing what was in her own mind, Millicent Tracy ran on, driving her mother wild. She did not know what she meant any more than Mrs. Tracy did. Acute disappointment, a kind of reverence18 and admiration19 of Ben, mixed strangely with a worldling’s unfeigned astonishment20 and contempt at his simplicity21, were in her mind. And there were other things besides. Regrets, not only for the house in Berkeley Square, but for the lost opportunity of perhaps catching22 at a different kind of life,{186}—longings quite undefined and inarticulate for something better,—self-disgust, self-pity,—all of which took form somehow in this bitter outburst of ‘temper,’ and supreme23, unspeakable discontent. Was she, after all, ‘in love’ with Ben? But how could Millicent answer that question, not knowing what love was? Sometimes she was seized with a sort of passionate24 kindness for him, gratitude25 for his devotion, always mingled26 with half contempt, half pity. In short, she did not know what was in her, vaguely27 struggling for the mastery. Principles which, perhaps, if good influence had been possible,—if!—poor hypothesis, that hangs about the road to ruin! And yet who knows what tears the angels may weep over those blind strugglings of the human soul towards something better, or of what account they may be in the eyes of One kinder than all angels? Who knows what such agitation28 means, what hopes rise with it, and in what blank sickening of soul and darkening of the world it comes to an end?
Mrs. Tracy frankly29 had no idea what her daughter could mean. She concluded she was tired, and had got worried over her packing, and perhaps was sorry to lose her lover,—for her mother was less stoical than the daughter, and prized a lover quand même. So the natural thing to do was to get the poor child to bed, and give her some more wine and water, and finish the work herself. ‘I will do that box for you,’ she said; ‘and remember, Millicent, you must be up{187} early. You want more sleep than I do.’ She was up half the night herself, but did not mind it. It was a new campaign, and great thoughts were in the mother’s mind. Thus the two prepared themselves to set out to spend poor Ben Renton’s hundred pounds. He, too, slept little that night. When they got to the railway in the morning he was there, pale and feverish30 from want of sleep, and from excess of love and misery31 and hope. ‘I am going to work for you,’ he whispered, as he put Millicent into the carriage, with that look of anguish32 and passion and appropriation33 which made her somehow despise herself. His Millicent he called her once more, kissing her hand in open day, in sight of all the world. Oh, how could he be such a fool! And yet——
Thus Millicent Tracy passed away for the moment out of Ben’s life; and he turned and walked from London Bridge all through the City in the cordial air of the May morning,—walked all the way to be alone and think of her in that crowd of London, before he should begin to work and win her,—with a hundred sweet pangs34 and stings of hope and suffering in his foolish heart.
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1
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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2
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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3
eschewing
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| v.（尤指为道德或实际理由而）习惯性避开，回避( eschew的现在分词 ) | |
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4
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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5
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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6
pensiveness
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| n.pensive（沉思的）的变形 | |
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7
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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8
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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9
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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10
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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11
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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12
vex
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| vt.使烦恼，使苦恼 | |
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13
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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14
incipient
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| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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15
mumble
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| n./v.喃喃而语，咕哝 | |
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16
sullenness
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| n. 愠怒, 沉闷, 情绪消沉 | |
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17
manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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18
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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19
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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20
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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21
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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22
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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23
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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24
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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25
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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26
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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27
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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28
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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29
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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30
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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31
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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32
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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33
appropriation
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| n.拨款，批准支出 | |
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34
pangs
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| 突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 )； 悲痛 | |
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