Mrs. Crawley would not allow herself to be driven up to the garden gate before her own house, but had left the carriage some three hundred yards off down the road, and from thence she walked home. It was now quite dark. It was nearly six in the evening on a wet December night, and although cloaks and shawls had been supplied to her, she was wet and cold when she reached her home. But at such a moment, anxious as she was to prevent the additional evil which would come to them all from illness to herself, she could not pass through to her room till she had spoken to her husband. He was sitting in the one sitting-room7 on the left side of the passage as the house was entered, and with him was their daughter Jane, a girl now nearly sixteen years of age. There was no light in the room, and hardly more than a spark of fire showed itself in the grate. The father was sitting on one side of the hearth8, in an old arm-chair, and there he had sat for the last hour without speaking. His daughter had been in and out of the room, and had endeavoured to gain his attention now and again by a word, but he had never answered her, and had not even noticed her presence. At the moment when Mrs. Crawley's step was heard upon the gravel9 which led to the door, Jane was kneeling before the fire with a hand upon her father's arm. She had tried to get her hand into his, but he had either been unaware10 of the attempt, or had rejected it.
"Here is mamma, at last," said Jane, rising to her feet as her mother entered the house.
"Are you all in the dark?" said Mrs. Crawley, striving to speak in a voice that should not be sorrowful.
"Yes, mamma; we are in the dark. Papa is here. Oh, mamma, how wet you are!"
"Yes, dear. It is raining. Get a light out of the kitchen, Jane, and I will go upstairs in two minutes." Then, when Jane was gone, the wife made her way in the dark over to her husband's side, and spoke6 a word to him. "Josiah," she said, "will you not speak to me?"
"What should I speak about? Where have you been?"
"I have been to Silverbridge. I have been to Mr. Walker. He, at any rate, is very kind."
"I don't want his kindness. I want no man's kindness. Mr. Walker is the attorney, I believe. Kind, indeed!"
"I mean considerate. Josiah, let us do the best we can in this trouble. We have had others as heavy before."
"But none to crush me as this will crush me. Well; what am I to do? Am I to go to prison—to-night?" At this moment his daughter returned with a candle, and the mother could not make her answer at once. It was a wretched, poverty-stricken room. By degrees the carpet had disappeared, which had been laid down some nine or ten years since, when they had first come to Hogglestock, and which even then had not been new. Now nothing but a poor fragment of it remained in front of the fire-place. In the middle of the room there was a table which had once been large; but one flap of it was gone altogether, and the other flap sloped grievously towards the floor, the weakness of old age having fallen into its legs. There were two or three smaller tables about, but they stood propped11 against walls, thence obtaining a security which their own strength would not give them. At the further end of the room there was an ancient piece of furniture, which was always called "papa's secretary," at which Mr. Crawley customarily sat and wrote his sermons, and did all work that was done by him within his house. The man who had made it, some time in the last century, had intended it to be a locked guardian12 for domestic documents, and the receptacle for all that was most private in the house of some paterfamilias. But beneath the hands of Mr. Crawley it always stood open; and with the exception of the small space at which he wrote, was covered with dog's-eared books, from nearly all of which the covers had disappeared. There were there two odd volumes of Euripides, a Greek Testament13, an Odyssey14, a duodecimo Pindar, and a miniature Anacreon. There was half a Horace,—the two first books of the Odes at the beginning, and the De Arte Poetica at the end having disappeared. There was a little bit of a volume of Cicero, and there were C?sar's Commentaries, in two volumes, so stoutly15 bound that they had defied the combined ill-usage of time and the Crawley family. All these were piled upon the secretary, with many others,—odd volumes of sermons and the like; but the Greek and Latin lay at the top, and showed signs of most frequent use. There was one arm-chair in the room,—a Windsor-chair, as such used to be called, made soft by an old cushion in the back, in which Mr. Crawley sat when both he and his wife were in the room, and Mrs. Crawley when he was absent. And there was an old horsehair sofa,—now almost denuded16 of its horsehair,—but that, like the tables, required the assistance of a friendly wall. Then there was half a dozen of other chairs,—all of different sorts,—and they completed the furniture of the room. It was not such a room as one would wish to see inhabited by a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England; but they who know what money will do and what it will not, will understand how easily a man with a family, and with a hundred and thirty pounds a year, may be brought to the need of inhabiting such a chamber17. When it is remembered that three pounds of meat a day, at ninepence a pound, will cost over forty pounds a year, there need be no difficulty in understanding that it may be so. Bread for such a family must cost at least twenty-five pounds. Clothes for five persons, of whom one must at any rate wear the raiment of a gentleman, can hardly be found for less than ten pounds a year a head. Then there remains18 fifteen pounds for tea, sugar, beer, wages, education, amusements, and the like. In such circumstances a gentleman can hardly pay much for the renewal19 of his furniture!
Mrs. Crawley could not answer her husband's question before her daughter, and was therefore obliged to make another excuse for again sending her out of the room. "Jane, dear," she said, "bring my things down to the kitchen and I will change them by the fire. I will be there in two minutes, when I have had a word with your papa." The girl went immediately and then Mrs. Crawley answered her husband's question. "No, my dear; there is no question of your going to prison."
"But there will be."
"I have undertaken that you shall attend before the magistrates at Silverbridge on Thursday next, at twelve o'clock. You will do that?"
"Do it! You mean, I suppose, to say that I must go there. Is anybody to come and fetch me?"
"Nobody will come. Only you must promise that you will be there. I have promised for you. You will go; will you not?" She stood leaning over him, half embracing him, waiting for an answer; but for a while he gave none. "You will tell me that you will do what I have undertaken for you, Josiah?"
"I think I would rather that they fetched me. I think that I will not go myself."
"And have policemen come for you into the parish! Mr. Walker has promised that he will send over his phaeton. He sent me home in it to-day."
"I want nobody's phaeton. If I go I will walk. If it were ten times the distance, and though I had not a shoe left to my feet I would walk. If I go there at all, of my own accord, I will walk there."
"But you will go?"
"What do I care for the parish? What matters it who sees me now? I cannot be degraded worse than I am. Everybody knows it."
"There is no disgrace without guilt," said his wife.
"Everybody thinks me guilty. I see it in their eyes. The children know of it, and I hear their whispers in the school, 'Mr. Crawley has taken some money.' I heard the girl say it myself."
"What matters what the girl says?"
"And yet you would have me go in a fine carriage to Silverbridge, as though to a wedding. If I am wanted there let them take me as they would another. I shall be here for them,—unless I am dead."
At this moment Jane reappeared, pressing her mother to take off her wet clothes, and Mrs. Crawley went with her daughter to the kitchen. The one red-armed young girl who was their only servant was sent away, and then the mother and child discussed how best they might prevail with the head of the family. "But, mamma, it must come right; must it not?"
"I trust it will. I think it will. But I cannot see my way as yet."
"Papa cannot have done anything wrong."
"No, my dear; he has done nothing wrong. He has made great mistakes, and it is hard to make people understand that he has not intentionally20 spoken untruths. He is ever thinking of other things, about the school, and his sermons, and he does not remember."
"And about how poor we are, mamma."
"He has much to occupy his mind, and he forgets things which dwell in the memory with other people. He said that he had got this money from Mr. Soames, and of course he thought that it was so."
"And where did he get it, mamma?"
"Ah,—I wish I knew. I should have said that I had seen every shilling that came into the house; but I know nothing of this cheque,—whence it came."
"But will not papa tell you?"
"He would tell me if he knew. He thinks it came from the dean."
"And are you sure it did not?"
"Yes; quite sure; as sure as I can be of anything. The dean told me he would give him fifty pounds, and the fifty pounds came. I had them in my own hands. And he has written to say that it was so."
"But couldn't this be part of the fifty pounds?"
"No, dear, no."
"Then where did papa get it? Perhaps he picked it up and has forgotten?"
To this Mrs. Crawley made no reply. The idea that the cheque had been found by her husband,—had been picked up as Jane had said,—had occurred also to Jane's mother. Mr. Soames was confident that he had dropped the pocket-book at the parsonage. Mrs. Crawley had always disliked Mr. Soames, thinking him to be hard, cruel, and vulgar. She would not have hesitated to believe him guilty of a falsehood, or even of direct dishonesty, if by so believing she could in her own mind have found the means of reconciling her husband's possession of the cheque with absolute truth on his part. But she could not do so. Even though Soames had, with devilish premeditated malice21, slipped the cheque into her husband's pocket, his having done so would not account for her husband's having used the cheque when he found it there. She was driven to make excuses for him which, valid22 as they might be with herself, could not be valid with others. He had said that Mr. Soames had paid the cheque to him. That was clearly a mistake. He had said that the cheque had been given to him by the dean. That was clearly another mistake. She knew, or thought she knew, that he, being such as he was, might make such blunders as these, and yet be true. She believed that such statements might be blunders and not falsehoods,—so convinced was she that her husband's mind would not act at all times as do the minds of other men. But having such a conviction she was driven to believe also that almost anything might be possible. Soames may have been right, or he might have dropped, not the book, but the cheque. She had no difficulty in presuming Soames to be wrong in any detail, if by so supposing she could make the exculpation23 of her husband easier to herself. If villany on the part of Soames was needful to her theory, Soames would become to her a villain24 at once,—of the blackest dye. Might it not be possible that the cheque having thus fallen into her husband's hands, he had come, after a while, to think that it had been sent to him by his friend, the dean? And if it were so, would it be possible to make others so believe? That there was some mistake which would be easily explained were her husband's mind lucid25 at all points, but which she could not explain because of the darkness of his mind, she was thoroughly26 convinced. But were she herself to put forward such a defence on her husband's part, she would in doing so be driven to say that he was a lunatic,—that he was incapable27 of managing the affairs of himself or his family. It seemed to her that she would be compelled to have him proved to be either a thief or a madman. And yet she knew that he was neither. That he was not a thief was as clear to her as the sun at noonday. Could she have lain on the man's bosom28 for twenty years, and not yet have learned the secrets of the heart beneath? The whole mind of the man was, as she told herself, within her grasp. He might have taken the twenty pounds; he might have taken it and spent it, though it was not his own; but yet he was no thief. Nor was he a madman. No man more sane29 in preaching the gospel of his Lord, in making intelligible30 to the ignorant the promises of his Saviour31, ever got into a parish pulpit, or taught in a parish school. The intellect of the man was as clear as running water in all things not appertaining to his daily life and its difficulties. He could be logical with a vengeance,—so logical as to cause infinite trouble to his wife, who, with all her good sense, was not logical. And he had Greek at his fingers' ends,—as his daughter knew very well. And even to this day he would sometimes recite to them English poetry, lines after lines, stanzas32 upon stanzas, in a sweet low melancholy33 voice, on long winter evenings when occasionally the burden of his troubles would be lighter34 to him than was usual. Books in Latin and in French he read with as much ease as in English, and took delight in such as came to him, when he would condescend35 to accept such loans from the deanery. And there was at times a lightness of heart about the man. In the course of the last winter he had translated into Greek irregular verse the very noble ballad36 of Lord Bateman, maintaining the rhythm and the rhyme, and had repeated it with uncouth37 glee till his daughter knew it all by heart. And when there had come to him a five-pound note from some admiring magazine editor as the price of the same,—still through the dean's hands,—he had brightened up his heart and had thought for an hour or two that even yet the world would smile upon him. His wife knew well that he was not mad; but yet she knew that there were dark moments with him, in which his mind was so much astray that he could not justly be called to account as to what he might remember and what he might forget. How would it be possible to explain all this to a judge and jury, so that they might neither say that he was dishonest, nor yet that he was mad? "Perhaps he picked it up, and had forgotten," her daughter said to her. Perhaps it was so, but she might not as yet admit as much even to her child.
"It is a mystery, dear, as yet, which, with God's aid, will be unravelled38. Of one thing we at least may be sure; that your papa has not wilfully39 done anything wrong."
"Of course we are sure of that, mamma."
Mrs. Crawley had many troubles during the next four or five days, of which the worst, perhaps, had reference to the services of the Sunday which intervened between the day of her visit to Silverbridge, and the sitting of the magistrates. On the Saturday it was necessary that he should prepare his sermons, of which he preached two on every Sunday, though his congregation consisted only of farmers, brickmakers, and agricultural labourers, who would willingly have dispensed40 with the second. Mrs. Crawley proposed to send over to Mr. Robarts, a neighbouring clergyman, for the loan of a curate. Mr. Robarts was a warm friend to the Crawleys, and in such an emergency would probably have come himself; but Mr. Crawley would not hear of it. The discussion took place early on the Saturday morning, before it was as yet daylight, for the poor woman was thinking day and night of her husband's troubles, and it had this good effect, that immediately after breakfast he seated himself at his desk, and worked at his task as though he had forgotten all else in the world.
And on the Sunday morning he went into his school before the hour of the church service, as had been his wont41, and taught there as though everything with him was as usual. Some of the children were absent, having heard of their teacher's tribulation42, and having been told probably that he would remit43 his work; and for these absent ones he sent in great anger. The poor bairns came creeping in, for he was a man who by his manners had been able to secure their obedience44 in spite of his poverty. And he preached to the people of his parish on that Sunday, as he had always preached; eagerly, clearly, with an eloquence45 fitted for the hearts of such an audience. No one would have guessed from his tones and gestures and appearance on that occasion, that there was aught wrong with him,—unless there had been there some observer keen enough to perceive that the greater care which he used, and the special eagerness of his words, denoted a special frame of mind.
After that, after those church services were over, he sank again and never roused himself till the dreaded46 day had come.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
magistrates
|
|
| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
apprehension
|
|
| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
beseechingly
|
|
| adv. 恳求地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
mitigate
|
|
| vt.（使）减轻，（使）缓和 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
sitting-room
|
|
| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
hearth
|
|
| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
gravel
|
|
| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
unaware
|
|
| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
propped
|
|
| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
guardian
|
|
| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
testament
|
|
| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
odyssey
|
|
| n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
stoutly
|
|
| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
denuded
|
|
| adj.[医]变光的，裸露的v.使赤裸( denude的过去式和过去分词 )；剥光覆盖物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
chamber
|
|
| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
renewal
|
|
| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
intentionally
|
|
| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
malice
|
|
| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
valid
|
|
| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
exculpation
|
|
| n.使无罪，辩解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
villain
|
|
| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
lucid
|
|
| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
thoroughly
|
|
| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
incapable
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
bosom
|
|
| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
sane
|
|
| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
intelligible
|
|
| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
saviour
|
|
| n.拯救者，救星 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
stanzas
|
|
| 节，段( stanza的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
lighter
|
|
| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
condescend
|
|
| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
ballad
|
|
| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
uncouth
|
|
| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
unravelled
|
|
| 解开，拆散，散开( unravel的过去式和过去分词 )； 阐明； 澄清； 弄清楚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
wilfully
|
|
| adv.任性固执地；蓄意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
dispensed
|
|
| v.分配( dispense的过去式和过去分词 )；施与；配（药） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
wont
|
|
| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
tribulation
|
|
| n.苦难，灾难 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
remit
|
|
| v.汇款，汇寄；豁免（债务），免除（处罚等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
obedience
|
|
| n.服从，顺从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
eloquence
|
|
| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
dreaded
|
|
| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |