“Yes;” he said;—“about my little boy. I could not say what I had to say in the street, though I had thought to do so.” Then he paused, and she sat herself down, feeling, she did not know why, as though she would lack strength to hear him if she stood. It was then the case that some particular service was to be demanded from her,—something that would show his confidence in her. The very idea of this seemed at once to add a grace to her life. She would have the child to love. There would be something for her to do. And there must be letters between her and him. It would certainly add a grace to her life. But how odd that he should not take his child with him! He had paused a moment while she thought of all this, and she was aware that he was looking at her. But she did not dare to return his gaze, or even to glance up at his face. And then gradually she felt that she was shivering and trembling. What was it that ailed1 her,—just now when it would be so necessary that she should speak out with some strength? She had eaten nothing since her breakfast when he had come to her, and she was afraid that she would show herself to be weak. “Will you be his mother?” he said.
What did it mean? How was she to answer him? She knew that his eyes were on her, but hers were more than ever firmly fixed2 upon the floor. And she was{311} aware that she ought briskly to have acceded3 to his request,—so as to have shown by her ready alacrity4 that she had attributed no other meaning to the words than they had been intended to convey,—that she had not for a moment been guilty of rash folly5. But though it was so imperative6 upon her to say a word, yet she could not speak. Everything was swimming round her. She was not even sure that she could sit upon her chair. “Lucy,” he said;—then she thought she would have fallen;—“Lucy, will you be my wife?”
There was no doubt about the word. Her sense of hearing was at any rate not deficient7. And there came upon her at once a thorough conviction that all her troubles had been changed for ever and a day into joys and blessings8. The word had been spoken from which he certainly would never go back, and which of course,—of course,—must be a commandment to her. But yet there was an unfitness about it which disturbed her, and she was still powerless to speak. The remembrance of the meanness of her clothes and poorness of her position came upon her,—so that it would be her duty to tell him that she was not fit for him; and yet she could not speak.
“If you will say that you want time to think about it, I shall be contented,” he said. But she did not want a moment to think about it. She could not have confessed to herself that she had learned to love him,—oh, so much too dearly,—if it were not for this most unexpected, most unthought of, almost impossible revelation.{312} But she did not want a moment to make herself sure that she did love him. Yet she could not speak. “Will you say that you will think of it for a month?”
Then there came upon her an idea that he was not asking this because he loved her, but in order that he might have a mother whom he could trust for his child. Even that would have been flattering, but that would not have sufficed. Then when she told herself what she was, or rather what she thought herself to be, she felt sure that he could not really love her. Why should such a man as he love such a woman? Then her mouth was opened. “You cannot want me for myself,” she said.
“Not for yourself! Then why? I am not the man to seek any girl for her fortune, and you have none.” Then again she was dumfounded. She could not explain what she meant. She could not say,—because I am brown, and because I am plain, and because I have become thin and worn from want, and because my clothes are old and shabby. “I ask you,” he said, “because with all my heart I love you.”
It was as though the heavens had been opened to her. That he should speak a word that was not true was to her impossible. And, as it was so, she would not coy her love to him for a moment. If only she could have found words with which to speak to him! She could not even look up at him, but she put out her hand so as to touch him. “Lucy,” he said, “stand up and come to me.” Then she stood up and with one{313} little step crept close to his side. “Lucy, can you love me?” And as he asked the question his arm was pressed round her waist, and as she put up her hand to welcome rather than to restrain his embrace, she again felt the strength, the support, and the warmth of his grasp. “Will you not say that you love me?”
“I am such a poor thing,” she replied.
“A poor thing, are you? Well, yes; there are different ways of being poor. I have been poor enough in my time, but I never thought myself a poor thing. And you must not say it ever of yourself again.”
“No?”
“My girl must not think herself a poor thing. May I not say, my girl?” Then there was just a little murmur9, a sound which would have been “yes” but for the inability of her lips to open themselves. “And if my girl, then my wife. And shall my wife be called a poor thing? No, Lucy. I have seen it all. I don’t think I like poor things;—but I like you.”
“Do you?”
“I do. And now I must go back to the City Road and give up charge and take my money. And I must leave this at seven—after a cup of tea. Shall I see you again?”
“See me again! Oh, to-day, you mean. Indeed you shall. Not see you off? My own, own, own man?”
“What will they say at the office?”
“I don’t care what they say. Let them say what they like. I have never been absent a day yet without{314} leave. What time shall I be here?” Then he named an hour. “Of course I will have your last words. Perhaps you will tell me something that I must do.”
“I must leave some money with you.”
“No; no; no; not yet. That shall come after.” This she said smiling up at him, with a sparkle of a tear in each eye, but with such a smile! Then he caught her in his arms and kissed her. “That may come at present at any rate,” he said. To this, though it was repeated once and again, there was no opposition10. Then in his own masterful manner he put on his hat and stalked out of the room without any more words.
She must return to the office that afternoon, of course, if only for the sake of explaining her wish to absent herself the rest of the day. But she could not go forth11 into the streets just yet. Though she had been able to smile at him and to return his caress12, and for a moment so to stand by him that she might have something of the delight of his love, still she was too much flurried, too weak from the excitement of the last half-hour, to walk back to the Post Office without allowing herself some minutes to recruit her strength and collect her thoughts. She went at once up to her own room and cut for herself a bit of bread which she began to eat,—just as one would trim one’s lamp carefully for some night work, even though oppressed by heaviest sorrow, or put fuel on the fire that would be needed. Then having fed herself, she leaned back in{315} her chair, throwing her handkerchief over her face, in order that she might think of it.
Oh,—how much there was to fill her mind with many thoughts! Looking back to what she had been even an hour ago, and then assuring herself with infinite delight of the certain happiness of her present position, she told herself that all the world had been altered to her within that short space. As for loving him;—there was no doubt about that! Now she could own to herself that she had long since loved him, even when she thought that he might probably take that other girl as his wife. That she should love him,—was it not a matter of course, he being what he was? But that he should love her,—that, that was the marvel13! But he did. She need not doubt that. She could remember distinctly each word of assurance that he had spoken to her. “I ask you, because with all my heart I love you.” “May I not say my girl;—and, if my girl, then my wife?” “I do not think that I like poor things; but I like you.” No. If she were regarded by him as good enough to be his wife then she would certainly never call herself a poor thing again.
In her troubles and her poverty,—especially in her solitude14, she had often thought of that other older man who had wanted to make her his wife,—sometimes almost with regret. There would have been duties for her and a home, and a mode of life more fitting to her feminine nature than this solitary15 tedious existence. And there would have been something for{316} her to love, some human being on whom to spend her human solicitude16 and sympathies. She had leagued herself with Sophy Wilson, and she had been true to the bond; but it had had in it but little satisfaction. The other life, she had sometimes thought, would have been better. But she had never loved the man, and could not have loved him as a husband should, she thought, be loved by his wife. She had done what was right in refusing the good things which he had offered her,—and now she was rewarded! Now had come to her the bliss17 of which she had dreamed, that of belonging to a man to whom she felt that she was bound by all the chords of her heart. Then she repeated his name to herself,—Abraham Hall, and tried in a lowest whisper the sound of that other name,—Lucy Hall. And she opened her arms wide as she sat upon the chair as though in that way she could take his child to her bosom18.
She had been sitting so nearly an hour when she started up suddenly and again put on her old hat and hurried off towards her office. She felt now that as regarded her clothes she did not care about herself. There was a paradise prepared for her so dear and so near that the present was made quite bright by merely being the short path to such a future. But for his sake she cared. As belonging to him she would fain, had it been possible, not have shown herself in a garb19 unfitting for his wife. Everything about him had always been decent, fitting, and serviceable! Well! It was his own doing. He had chosen her as she was.{317} She would not run in debt to make herself fit for his notice, because such debts would have been debts to be paid by him. But if she could squeeze from her food what should supply her with garments fit at any rate to stand with him at the altar it should be done.
Then, as she hurried on to the office, she remembered what he had said about money. No! She would not have his money till it was hers of right. Then with what perfect satisfaction would she take from him whatever he pleased to give her, and how hard would she work for him in order that he might never feel that he had given her his good things for nothing!
It was five o’clock before she was at the office, and she had promised to be back in the lodgings21 at six, to get for him his tea. It was quite out of the question that she should work to-day. “The truth is, ma’am,” she said to the female superintendent22, “I have received and accepted an offer of marriage this afternoon. He is going out of town to-night, and I want to be with him before he goes.” This is a plea against which official rigour cannot prevail. I remember once when a young man applied23 to a saturnine24 pundit25 who ruled matters in a certain office for leave of absence for a month to get married. “To get married!” said the saturnine pundit. “Poor fellow! But you must have the leave.” The lady at the telegraph office was no doubt less caustic26, and dismissed our Lucy for the day with congratulations rather than pity.
She was back at the lodging20 before her lover, and had borrowed the little back parlour from Mrs. Green,{318} and had spread the tea-things, and herself made the toast in the kitchen before he came. “There’s something I suppose more nor friendship betwixt you and Mr. Hall, and better,” said the landlady27 smiling. “A great deal better, Mrs. Green,” Lucy had replied, with her face intent upon the toast. “I thought it never could have been that other young lady,” said Mrs. Green.
“And now, my dear, about money,” said Abraham as he rose to prepare himself for the journey. Many things had been settled over that meal,—how he was to get a house ready, and was then to say when she should come to him, and how she should bring the boy with her, and how he would have the banns called in the church, and how they would be married as soon as possible after her arrival in the new country. “And now, my dear, about money?”
She had to take it at last. “Yes,” she said, “it is right that I should have things fit to come to you in. It is right that you shouldn’t be disgraced.”
“I’d marry you in a sack from the poor-house, if it were necessary,” he said with vehemence28.
“As it is not necessary, it shall not be so. I will get things;—but they shall belong to you always; and I will not wear them till the day that I also shall belong to you.”
She went with him that night to the station, and kissed him openly as she parted from him on the platform. There was nothing in her love now of which she was ashamed. How, after some necessary interval,{319} she followed him down into Gloucestershire, and how she became his wife standing29 opposite to him in the bright raiment which his liberality had supplied, and how she became as good a wife as ever blessed a man’s household, need hardly here be told.
That Miss Wilson recovered her health and married the hairdresser may be accepted by all anxious readers as an undoubted fact.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
ailed
|
|
| v.生病( ail的过去式和过去分词 )；感到不舒服；处境困难；境况不佳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
acceded
|
|
| v.（正式）加入( accede的过去式和过去分词 )；答应；（通过财产的添附而）增加；开始任职 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
alacrity
|
|
| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
folly
|
|
| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
imperative
|
|
| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
deficient
|
|
| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
blessings
|
|
| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
murmur
|
|
| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
opposition
|
|
| n.反对，敌对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
caress
|
|
| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
marvel
|
|
| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
solitude
|
|
| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
solitary
|
|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
solicitude
|
|
| n.焦虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
bliss
|
|
| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
bosom
|
|
| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
garb
|
|
| n.服装，装束 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
lodging
|
|
| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
lodgings
|
|
| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
superintendent
|
|
| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
applied
|
|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
saturnine
|
|
| adj.忧郁的，沉默寡言的，阴沉的，感染铅毒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
pundit
|
|
| n.博学之人；权威 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
caustic
|
|
| adj.刻薄的，腐蚀性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
landlady
|
|
| n.女房东，女地主 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
vehemence
|
|
| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |