She stood still presently, carefully scanning the solemn, stately houses with pillared porticos all of the self-same pattern, which run in an interminable row to a vanishing point seemingly far beyond conjecture4.
“Each of the houses is exactly like the other,” she murmured to herself. “In which, I wonder, does the Muse5 of Newcastle hold her court? Like most muses6, she gave no number. I must judge by out-{2}sides. Oh, here we are; green Liberty curtains in the windows—a more daring green on the door—a knocker of medi?val tendencies! I will try.”
“I promised to call on this woman, and I am doing it, but I shall be bored. She will talk of Ibsen, and Meredith, and tell me she had read Plato through before she was fifteen. She will take herself seriously, and me too, and inundate9 me with questions about the people in London. All these provincials10 do. Still, she pressed me so prettily12 to call that I could not say No. But I shall be bored!—Is Mrs. Mortimer Elles at home?” she enquired13 of the handsome, full-blown parlour maid who opened the door widely and invitingly14.
“Oh, yes, ma’am—this is Mrs. Elles’ day at home.”
“Much too familiar!” thought Egidia, as she followed the swing of the maid’s cap streamers through portièred doorways15 and past Syrian shawl-draped cornices, and other pathetically futile16 attempts to conceal17 the impossible architecture of a commonplace house, built in a bad period, and decorated originally on the worst principles.
“Muslin curtains are a mistake in an atmosphere like this of Newcastle!” she thought, “and a parlour-maid should not aim at looking like Madame Sans Gêne.”
She was shown into a drawing-room, “stamped with the evidences of culture,” as the interviewer{3} would say, and “redolent of a personality.” Books were scattered18 about; the piano stood open, with the latest “mood” of the latest fashionable composer lying on it; there were magazines, with paper-knives negligently19 bisecting their leaves. There were, on the walls, some grim old pictures—family portraits, presumably—of ill-tempered, high-stocked old gentlemen and prim20, dignified21 ladies, but they were interspersed22 with sundry23 scratchy and erratic24 modern etchings and photogravures; there were great bowls of flowers—whose apparent substance, the authoress could not help suspecting, was cleverly eked25 out with artificial imitations procurable26 at drapers’ shops. The whole effect was rather pretty and French, and thoroughly27 out of keeping with the grim realities of Northern hardness and abnegation of art-feeling that reigned28 outside.
A young woman, beautifully dressed, who was sitting over the fire, though it was not cold, rose eagerly to receive her distinguished29 guest, exclaiming, with the most flattering and heart-felt emphasis,
“Oh, Miss Giles, how good of you to come! I was afraid you would have quite forgotten me and my day!”
She was a slight woman, not tall, but slender enough to look so. Her eyes were very large and bright, her cheeks, flushed, perhaps with the fire. She made wrinkles when she laughed, but she did not look more than twenty-eight. A little powder, carelessly and innocently cast there, showed on cheeks “hollowed a little mournfully,” as the poet has it.{4} Her hair was arranged in hundreds of little waves and curls, and her dress—Egidia had been in the best houses in Newcastle, during the last few days, but had seen nothing to equal the style and taste of this little solicitor30’s wife. Thought and ingenuity31 had gone to the devising of that gown, but the wearer of it had forgotten to fasten the last two buttons of her sleeve.
“The artistic32 sense strongly developed—but very little power of co-ordination.” So the authoress, taking all these points into consideration and exercising her own professional faculty33 of classification, mentally assessed her hostess.
“This is my day,” Mrs. Elles was assuring her. “I partly hope people will come, and partly not. I would so much rather have you to myself—but then, some of my friends were so anxious to meet you when I said I knew you—so I had to give them a chance—you don’t mind being lionized a little, do you? We can’t help it!”
The “celebrity” had been a “celebrity” so long that she had left off objecting to the outward indications of her supremacy34. Though she was a lion, and gave lectures, she was modest and easily pacified35. She was fascinated by something curiously36 plaintive37 and beguiling38 about her hostess’s voice and manner; a suggestion of childishness, of almost weakness as she thought, in its artificial cadences39. For it was an affectation, Miss Giles, whose nom-de-guerre was Egidia, decided40, though a pleasing one.{5}
“I wonder if she scolds her servants in that tone?” she thought, while submitting to the charm, and, lying easily back in her chair, listened to her hostess’s ecstasies41 about her books and her lectures, her prettily expressed enviousness of the presumably happier conditions of her guest’s life in London.
“Oh, what it must be to be in the midst of life, really in it—of it—part of it! Here one sits, and yearns42, and only catches the far-away echoes, the reverberations of the delightful43 things that are happening, away down there, where you are—in the very, very heart of it all!”
The peri left out of Paradise clasped her pretty, soft, pliant44 hands, and the novelist asked her, willing to be instructed,
“Is Newcastle, then, worse than other provincial11 towns?”
“I only know Newcastle, but I am sure it’s worse. There are a few nice advanced people, but they go away all the time, or if they bring nice people down from London, they keep them to themselves. I never see any one worth talking to. Oh, it is hopeless—hopeless!” She shrugged45 her shoulders. “It is simply a form of Hades,—this life for me, for I have ‘glimpses of what might make me less forlorn,’ of a life to live, a world to move in. I feel I was not meant to merely stagnate—to vegetate—to wither46 gradually away, consumed by my own wasted energies. You laugh! coming straight, as you do, from that paradise of life and movement, that I am sure London{6} is, you can have no idea of what Newcastle and my life is! Inertia47 kills people like me, one’s soul is starved, don’t you know?—one’s mental life has nothing to feed on, no pabulum, except books—and they are not easy to get—new books. I am the trial and pest of the libraries here!”
“You read a great deal?”
“Oh, yes. I live on books. They are the greatest possible comfort to me. They are literally48 my saviours49. I quite sympathize with the heroine of a novel I read lately, who was kept from suicide by the sight of her favourite poets on her book-shelf! I make myself up a dream-life, don’t you know—the life I should like to live if I could choose. One dream-life, do I say?” Her eyes lightened and brightened: she was extraordinarily50 alert and vivid. “Two or three—a perfect orgy of dream-lives! They cost nothing. But I have always read a great deal. The classics I don’t neglect. I read Plato before I was fifteen—in Jowett’s translation, of course.”
Egidia smiled.
“And your books?”
“Don’t! don’t!” Egidia held up her hands.
“But I love them—I go to them for comfort and help. I have them all—on a shelf near my bed—a whole row of my favourites—Browning, and Meredith—and Ibsen. I am a great Ibsenite—are not you?”
“It is very fashionable!”
“Oh! but really, don’t you think—?” She was becoming quite incoherent in her excitement. “Now,{7} Nora in the ‘Doll’s House’?—It is the story of so many of us. Only it is a mistake of Ibsen to make the husband a cheat—that seems to put him too much in the wrong, he is wrong enough, without that. Oh, Nora was so right to leave him, I think. So strong! Do you know the sound of the house door banging in that play stirs me like the sound of a trumpet51?”
“You should write a book yourself!” suggested Egidia, indulgently, knowing well the answer she would receive.
“Ah! I haven’t time. But if I did, I could put in things—things that have happened to me—experience—more of feeling than of incident, perhaps. I was an only daughter; my father was in the army; I travelled a good deal; but I have not had a life of adventure; I married when I was seventeen. My husband was a widower53 then, and his son, Charles, lives with us—and his aunt, Mrs. Poynder.” She had an involuntary little shudder54. “He is a solicitor; you know that. And he has a huge practice. He is very much occupied, and takes no interest in the things you and I care about. Of course, he laughs at me for my—enthusiasms—but I should die if I didn’t.”
There were tears in her eyes.
“Some day, if you will, you must come and stop with me in town,” said Egidia, in an access of womanly compassion55 for this somewhat ungrammatical but sincere tale of misfortune.{8}
“Shall I? Shall I? Oh, how lovely that would be!” Her brilliant smile came out again. “To see—to have a glimpse of all those wonderful literary people in whose company your life is spent.”
“Well, I happen to know more of artists than I do of literary people,” said Egidia. “You see, my own ‘shop’ bores me. Do you collect—I am sure you do?” She had seen the unmistakable flame of the autograph-fever leap into Mrs. Elles’ eyes. “I can send you some, if you like. I have one in my pocket now that I can give you, from Edmund Rivers, the landscape painter.”
“The R. A.?” Mrs. Elles, who always took care to have a Royal Academy Catalogue sent up to her every year, and learnt it by heart, enquired eagerly.
“Yes, the R. A. and my second cousin!” Egidia answered, carelessly pulling a crumpled56 note out of her pocket and handing it to Mrs. Elles. “Read it!”
“Dear Alice,” (read Mrs. Elles), “I am so sorry that I cannot have the pleasure of dining with you on the 31st, but I hope to be in the North on the 26th, at latest, to begin my summer campaign. I see the spring buds in the parks, and the Inspector57 of Nuisances has invited me to clip my sprouting58 lilac bushes, and it all reminds me too painfully of the paradise of greenness that is growing up in the country, and calling me. I shall soon be ‘a green thought in a green shade’—as Marvel60 says, and very much in my element. Yours ever, Edmund Rivers.{9}”
“The twenty-sixth,” said Mrs. Elles, meditating61. “This is the thirtieth. Then he is gone.”
“Oh, yes, no one will set eyes on him again till November, when he comes back from what he calls his summer campaign. He takes good care that none of us shall even know where his happy hunting ground is—somewhere in Yorkshire, I believe! Oh, yes, you may keep the letter.”
Mrs. Elles took the letter with her pretty, be-ringed fingers, and scanned it again with the air of a connoisseur62.
“Do you know,” she said, “I take a double interest in these things; first of all, because they are autographs of distinguished people, but, in the second place, because I can read their characters so well from their handwritings.”
“I wonder if you can tell me anything of this man’s character, then?” said the novelist, with a look in her eyes which set Mrs. Elles thinking. Miss Giles, in her way, was attractive. It was not Mrs. Elles’ way, but Mrs. Elles had sufficient discernment to see merit in a style that was not her style at all. Miss Giles had no pose, unless it was that of bonhomie. The charm of her face lay in its nobility, touched with shrewdness; a certain modest mannishness as of a woman who had to look after herself, and who had cut out a way for herself, marked her appearance. Her dress was not in any way unfeminine, but Mrs. Elles decided that she would have looked well, dressed as a boy. She had beautiful eyes, and dark{10} hair that curled. She must always have looked thirty-six, and would probably never look any older than she looked now.
“It is a very odd, characteristic handwriting indeed,” she began gravely, “he is complicated, tremendously complicated, I should say.”
“He is an artist, a genius indeed, in my opinion,” said the novelist, soberly.
“Ah! then, of course, he has a right to be eccentric. They all are, aren’t they? Well, isn’t he a little—how shall I say it?—fanciful, faddish63, difficult to get on with?”
“You have, in the words of the song, ‘got to know him first,’” quoted Egidia, laughing.
“And you do know him, well, of course! But still, I should say he is what is called a misogynist64.”
She was watching the effect of her words on the other. Even the strong-minded authoress of novels with a purpose has her weak spot, she was glad to see.
“Hating women! Well, I can’t say he pays them much attention. I don’t suppose he ever looked at a woman in his life!” There was certainly a touch of bitterness in this speech, and Mrs. Elles was delighted.
“Not married then!” she exclaimed. “And yet, I should say that he is not obtuse65 to the charm of material things—that he is even a great lover of beauty—in the abstract, then, I suppose. Nature—you said he was a landscape painter, didn’t you? Does he never put people into his pictures—never put you, for instance?{11}”
Egidia laughed.
“No? Well, I must say I don’t care for pictures without any human interest at all.”
“Then you wouldn’t care for Edmund Rivers’ work, unless you could get your romance out of the scarred, weather-beaten face of an old windmill or a ruined castle! He leaves the human interest entirely66 out of his pictures.”
“And out of his life, too, it seems,” said the other, “and both suffer in consequence. Don’t tell me; there is something wrong about a man who doesn’t care for women! Some day one will awaken67 him. But meantime I see a certain want of sympathy in the determined68 uprightness of these capital N’s that refuse to merge69 properly into the letters that come after, and obstinacy70 in the blunt endings of those g’s. And yet he must have great delicacy71 of touch—he seems to feel certain words as he writes them. Isn’t his painting very refined and delicate?”
“It is all sorts, strong and delicate at once,” Egidia asseverated72 with enthusiasm.
“And he is a great friend of yours!” Mrs. Elles remarked conclusively73, folding up the letter and putting it in her pocket. She was now quite confirmed in her theory that the authoress had a secret passion for the painter. “Is he young?”
“Fifty!” said Egidia, bluntly; she was beginning to guess the drift of her companion’s thoughts, and, though secretly amused at them, was minded to put her off a little, “and his hair is turning grey.{12}”
“But I adore grey hair,” Mrs. Elles exclaimed hastily and enthusiastically, as the door opened and a Miss Drummond was announced.
“Oh dear!” ejaculated the hostess, almost in the new arrival’s hearing, but made amends74 for her discourtesy by a very effusive75 greeting. She introduced “Miss Giles—Egidia, you know;” with a flourish as one with whom she was on deeply intimate terms, casting at the same time a pathetic, imploring76 look in the latter’s direction, as much as to ask her not to discount her statement. Then more people came in. The room was filling.
“Don’t go,” she whispered to Egidia, more as an appeal than a civility, and the good-natured authoress stayed and watched her, and studied her.
She saw that dim notions of Madame Récamier to be emulated77 and a salon78 to be held prevailed in the mind of the lady whom she had dubbed79 the Muse of Newcastle. Such culture, such an atmosphere of literary gossip as is current in many a second-class literary centre in London, flourished here, and Mrs. Elles led the inferior revels80 with aplomb81 and discrimination. She man?uvred her guests very cleverly, on the whole, and talked much and well—with the slight tendency to exaggerate which Egidia had already noticed in her. Like many restless, excitable people, she did not seem able to both talk and look at a person at the same time, and her restless eyes were continually directed towards the door, as if expecting and dreading82 a fresh arrival.{13}
About half-past five the mystery was solved; a tall, well set-up woman of fifty walked in, bonnetless, who seemed to know nearly everybody and shook hands with all the painful effect of a bone-crushing machine, as Egidia experienced when “my aunt, Mrs. Poynder,” was introduced to her. The stout83 lady then took a tiny seat near Miss Drummond, and Egidia was much diverted by her loudly-spoken comments on her niece’s guests. She was a woman to whom a whisper was obviously an impossible operation.
“And which is Fibby’s grand London authoress she’s so set up with?” she was heard to ask. “Fibby mumbles84 names so that I haven’t a notion which it is! Oh, deary me, here’s the Newcastle poet. I’m sure he has no call to stoop as he comes in; he needn’t think he’s tall enough to graze the lintel.... But I would dearly like to cut his hair for him.... Po-uttry! No! po-uttry I can’t stand ... why, if a man’s got anything to say, can’t he say it straight without so much ado?” The Newcastle poet, who wore his hair nearly as long as poets do in London, shook hands and presented a slim, green volume to Mrs. Elles.
“You must write ‘Ph?be Elles’ in it!” his hostess said, imperiously, and led him to a side table, where, with many a dedicatory flourish, he did as she required. Then she introduced him to Egidia, with the air of one introducing Theocritus and Sappho.
“And do you kill the lovers?” she asked, alluding85, presumably, to characters in the volume she held.{14} “How relentless86 of you!” She added to her guests, “I had the privilege of reading it in the proof, you know.”
“Ah! I had to kill them,” he murmured, plaintively87, “sooner than let them know the sad satiety88 of love.”
“My goodness!” Mrs. Poynder muttered.
The conversation, appallingly89 immoral90 as it was, yet seemed to interest the good lady, for she drew nearer and formed a chorus to the very modern discussion that ensued between the poet and Egidia and her niece, of which London and London literary society was the theme. The epigrams that were flying about she visibly and audibly pooh-poohed. “Give me Newcastle!” she murmured at intervals91, and “You, a mere8 lad, too!” was elicited92 from her by any world-weary extravagance of the poet’s. He was in self-defence; driven to incidentally mention his age—quite a respectable age, as it appeared. Mrs. Elles was not to be outdone—
“I am twenty-six,” he remarked, with an air of reluctant candour.
“And a very good age to stop at!” observed her aunt, with intention.
The novelist looked with compassion on this poor woman who, like Widrington, fought the battle of pose and society, at such frightful93 odds94. The poet presently drifted in her direction and they held a short but epoch-making—as regarded Mrs. Elles—conversation.{15}
“Mrs. Poynder is to me just like an upas-tree,” he confided95 to Egidia, wringing96 his hands together. “In her shadow, any poetical97 idea would wither and die!”
“There is, indeed, a good deal of shadow!” remarked Egidia, alluding to Mrs. Poynder’s truly majestic98 proportions. “She is a handsome woman in her way!”
“Yes,” he replied wearily, “plenty of presence, and all of it bad, as they said of George III. But seriously, you know, she leads our dear friend a sad life. She contradicts her in everything, and thwarts99 every instinct of culture. If Mrs. Elles had not plenty of pluck, she would have given in long ago. And her husband!”—he held up his hands.
The poet’s indiscretions bore fruit in a hearty100 invitation from Egidia to Mrs. Elles, to visit her often at the house where she was staying in Newcastle.
“Brave little woman! I will try and cheer her up a bit!” she thought, as she left the house.
The little party broke up soon after, and Mrs. Elles was left alone with her aunt, who, as the door closed on the last guest, opened her lips and gave, uncalled for, her opinions of the guest.
“That’s a real nice woman!” she said, “that littry friend of yours; I approve of her. It’s a good thing I didn’t take your advice, Fibby, and go trapesing up to Jesmond, this afternoon, to call on Miss Drummond. Why, the girl was here. And such a crowd, too. You said there wouldn’t be anybody here to-day!{16}”
“Did I? One never knows,” replied her niece negligently, sauntering up to the piano, and opening it.
“I’ll be bound you knew well enough, Fibby. Wanted to be rid of the old woman, eh? Well, I’m glad I defeated your little plans, and saw your friend, who seemed a sensible sort of woman, not the flyabastic sort you generally get here. Pity but she’d seen Mortimer!”
“Do you think Mortimer would have impressed her?” asked his wife, bitterly.
“And why not? Are you ashamed of your husband, Fibby? It’s my belief that you are ashamed of us all, and hankering after those London people and the ramshackle life they seem to lead. Gallant101 times they have, to be sure! Thinking only of themselves and their pleasures and making love to each other’s wives! And you are just savage102 because you aren’t there, too! Oh! I know you!”
Mrs. Elles had broken out into a stormy mazurka that nearly drowned Mrs. Poynder’s words, as possibly she intended it to do. “Ay! ay!” the latter remarked, “work it off that way—I advise you!”
“Don’t insult me, aunt!”
Mrs. Poynder laughed in her own harsh fashion, and, looking towards the door whose handles just then turned, called out, “Come in, Mortimer! Come and speak to this wife of yours!”
The clumsy, thick-necked man who entered stopped short and looked round stupidly; his wife sat with her{17} back turned, playing; his aunt stood there, smiling her cruel, blighting103 smile, that showed a set of the most perfectly104 formed teeth that money could buy. He took his cue from her, and going across the room, laid a heavy hand on his wife’s shoulder, saying kindly105,
“What’s the matter, old lady?”
“Oh, Mortimer, please don’t call me that. I can’t bear it!”
“Well, really!” said he.
“Hysterical!” said the aunt, still smiling. “I don’t wonder, after the conversation we have been having, and the things we have been hearing! Fibby’s had grand new London friends here—to put her out of love with us all. We’re all too plain and common for Fibby now!”
Still smiling—was a smile ever so denuded107 of grace and benevolence108?—she gathered up her crochet109 and left the room. Mrs. Elles then rose from the piano, and, dabbing110 her handkerchief to her eyes, made a step in the direction of the door. But she changed her mind and stood still by the mantelpiece with the figure half averted111.
“I’m sure I beg all your pardons,” she murmured, almost inaudibly. “Oh, damn! where’s the paper?” said Mortimer Elles. Securing it, and sinking into an arm-chair with a great, puffing112 breath, he hid his face behind the broad white sheet. His coat tails{18} caught the Oriental cloth on a small table near him and dragged it nearly off. Mrs. Elles rushed forward and saved one of the many pieces of china that rested on it from destruction.
“Throw the beastly thing on the fire!” he growled113 out, without looking up. “This house is far too full.”
A gong sounded.
“I am going up to dress for dinner,” she said, aggressively, standing114 in front of him. “Shan’t you, Mortimer?”
“There’s nobody coming, is there?”
“No—unfortunately—but I like to dress.”
“Dress if you like, but don’t bother me!”
“Oh, I do wonder what you married me for, Mortimer?” she complained with plaintive savageness115.
“I do wish you wouldn’t talk nonsense!” he answered. “What has marriage to do with dressing116 for dinner?”
“Perhaps more than you think,” she murmured still in a low key, as she walked past him and opened the door. She crossed the hall slowly, like a somnambulist. It was true the conversation of Egidia and of the poet, who was no fool, and who had been brought out by the tact117 of the London woman, had set her thinking, and her mind travelling in a new direction. She trod on her gown going upstairs, and picked it up with the tragically118 careless gesture of a Joan of Arc going to the stake. She made herself the effect of a prisoner in a strange land—an alien princess in the hands of the Saracens—the Lady of “Comus” among{19} the rabble119 rout59. She was a delicate piece of porcelain120 among rough earthenware121 pots—a harp122 played upon by unknowing boors123. She muttered to herself phrases of philosophy and resignation that she did not feel—her whole soul was in revolt against the conditions of her life.
“Oh, it is all so ugly!” she murmured.
She paused on the landing and looked down. Charles, her step-son, had just come in and hung up his hat and clattered124 down every other hat in the hall.
“Hallo, Mater!” he shouted up, “don’t commit suicide over the banisters and make a mess! Hurry up and get ready for dinner!”
“I am glad I did not have a child,” she said to herself. “He might have been half like that!”
She dressed for dinner, in a very handsome, vaporous tea-gown, drank a little sal-volatile, read a couple of verses of Omar Khayam, and sailed into the dining-room, determined to be resigned, pathetic and amiable125. Her husband’s untidy, baggy126 shooting jacket, and Charles’s abominable127 “blazer,” gave her the usual jar, while Mrs. Poynder’s cheap white lace tippet with pink ribbons was only another item in the general tale of the inappropriateness and disgust. She pouted128, and dropped gracefully129 into her accustomed seat, looking like a piece of thistledown suddenly lighted on the dull leather-covered mahogany chair.
The mild, provincial dinner proceeded. “What’s this?” asked Mortimer, when a dish came round to him. “Put it on the table, can’t you?{20}”
“Chicken croquettes. I like things handed!” she pleaded.
“Do you? I don’t. I like to have what I am eating in front of me. You won’t take any, Ph?be? Oh, very well. You want to get scraggier than you are. A lean wife is a standing reproach to a fellow.”
“Fibby is afraid of spoiling her fashionable figure!” observed Mrs. Poynder, drawing herself up, to show her own to the best advantage. It was of a certain solid merit, not to be gainsaid131.
With these, and other family amenities132, was the time of dining enlivened. Mrs. Elles’ attitude was one of faintly raised eyebrows133, but she did not allow herself to say anything to-day, that a heroine might regret. She was not generally so circumspect134. As soon as dinner was over, she rose and followed Mrs. Poynder out of the room. Mrs. Poynder liked to go first, and she was allowed to do so when no one was there. Mortimer Elles, who was by no means in a bad humour, moved his chair a little to make way for his wife.
“Do you call that a gown?” he said, fingering a fold of the shining satin. “And pray, what may that have cost me?”
“Don’t!” she said, drawing it away.
“Surely I may touch it if I am to have the privilege of paying for it?”
“It is not very nice of you, Mortimer, to remind me that I haven’t a penny of my own, and must depend on your bounty135!{21}”
“And a good job, too!” he said, laughing; he was certainly in a very good humour. “It’s the only hold I’ve got on you—the only way I have of keeping you in order.”
“Mortimer—I am not a child!”
“No, by Jove, not quite! Let me see, you were nineteen when I married you—we have been married ten years—that makes you out—?”
“You needn’t trouble to go on,” she replied haughtily136, “I can’t say that the subject interests me—one only counts birthdays when one is happy.”
She escaped to her room, tore off the gauzy tea gown, and put on a black one which she reserved for occasions like this, when the mood of gloom preponderated137. It was a little affectation of hers to dress as far as possible in character with her mood of the moment.
Yes, she was very wretched—had been for the last ten years. She wondered how she had borne it so long, and if she could go on bearing it. The time had surely come for her to do something—what? She would go, to-morrow, and call on Egidia in the big house where she was staying at Jesmond Dene, and talk it all over with her. Egidia, being a professed138 searcher into the secrets of the heart, would be able to understand, and perhaps offer some solution of her dreadful predicament. She might even take a professional interest in it. “She can put me in a novel if she likes,” Ph?be Elles said to herself, wearily, “but I must speak or I shall die!”
Die of dullness, die of disappointment, die of inani{22}tion, or, what was worse, lose her looks. “They are the silent griefs that cut the heart-strings,” she quoted, from Heaven knows what recondite139 Elizabethan play, “and dull the complexion,” she added on her responsibility. She always read everything more or less with reference to herself, and twisted the most impassioned utterances140 of poetry and the drama into apt coincidence with her own affairs.
Up till now, she had sedulously141 preserved the one virtue142 of neglected wives—she had never “peached.” She had scrupulously143 disdained144 the common vulgarity of confidences, the petty relief of expansion, and no one had ever heard her abuse her husband. She had learned to speak of him with an amused tolerance145, whose undercurrent of contempt was not necessarily apparent to the merely superficial observer. It was a point of honour with her; but deep below her graceful130 reticence146 lay the point of vanity—she wanted people to think, if possible, that Mortimer, whom she had ceased to care for, was still desperately147 in love with her.
She had read many French novels, and she knew that, socially speaking, there was one modus vivendi to be adopted by a woman in her position. She might create for herself some outside interest—she might get up the harmless, necessary flirtation148, by which women, circumstanced as she was, are apt to console themselves.
Without the remotest intention of actually pursuing it, she began to cast about in her mind for a possible{23} coadjutor in such a course of action. She began to count heads, to consider all the eligible149 flirtations that Newcastle afforded, with a drear little smile at the paucity150 of attractions, at the inferiority of the subject material which presented itself to her mind.
The poet! He was handsome, clever, romantic; he admired her much, but only on condition that she returned his compliment and admired him more! That would not do. Besides, her present pose to him was that of a mother—a very young mother of course—and promoter of his incipient151 predilection152 for the handsome and “horsey” Miss Drummond, Atalanta-Diana as he was pleased to call her; the girl of strong physique and mannish tastes, who was the complement153 of his own nature. Then there was Dr. Moorsom, who lived next door—“The man whose business it would be to doctor me if I fell ill!” she sneered154 to herself. Everyone was supremely155 uninteresting—as uninteresting as Mortimer. That was the worst of it—Mortimer was odious156, but then, so was everybody else.
No, better be “straight” and a martyr157, than set herself, at the cost of her reputation, perhaps, to wrest158 from society a merely nominal159 happiness, and court a catastrophe160 that would have none of the elements of grandeur161 or romance about it. She would go back to her “dream-lives”—to the literary simulacra of existence which, till the epoch-making advent52 of the South-country novelist, had sufficed her, and had been as the mirror Perseus held up before Andromeda, affording her the harmless vision of the Gorgon’s head with the snaky horror of its looks that may stand for life and the hideous162 complications thereof.
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1
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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shrouds
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| n.裹尸布( shroud的名词复数 )；寿衣；遮蔽物；覆盖物v.隐瞒( shroud的第三人称单数 )；保密 | |
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conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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muses
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的第三人称单数 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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inundate
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| vt.淹没，泛滥，压倒 | |
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10
provincials
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| n.首都以外的人，地区居民( provincial的名词复数 ) | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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enquired
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| 打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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invitingly
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| adv. 动人地 | |
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15
doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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16
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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negligently
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20
prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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21
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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23
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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24
erratic
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| adj.古怪的，反复无常的，不稳定的 | |
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25
eked
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| v.（靠节省用量）使…的供应持久( eke的过去式和过去分词 )；节约使用；竭力维持生计；勉强度日 | |
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26
procurable
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| adj.可得到的，得手的 | |
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27
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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28
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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29
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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30
solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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31
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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32
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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33
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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34
supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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35
pacified
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| 使（某人）安静( pacify的过去式和过去分词 )； 息怒； 抚慰； 在（有战争的地区、国家等）实现和平 | |
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36
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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37
plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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38
beguiling
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| adj.欺骗的，诱人的v.欺骗( beguile的现在分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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39
cadences
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| n.（声音的）抑扬顿挫( cadence的名词复数 )；节奏；韵律；调子 | |
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40
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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41
ecstasies
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| 狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 )； 出神； 入迷； 迷幻药 | |
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42
yearns
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的第三人称单数 ) | |
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43
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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44
pliant
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| adj.顺从的；可弯曲的 | |
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45
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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46
wither
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| vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡 | |
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47
inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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48
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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49
saviours
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| n.救助者( saviour的名词复数 )；救星；救世主；耶稣基督 | |
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50
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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51
trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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52
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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53
widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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54
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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55
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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56
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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57
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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58
sprouting
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| v.发芽( sprout的现在分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
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59
rout
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| n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮 | |
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60
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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61
meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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62
connoisseur
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| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
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63
faddish
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| adj.好赶时髦的；一时流行的 | |
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64
misogynist
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| n.厌恶女人的人 | |
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65
obtuse
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| adj.钝的；愚钝的 | |
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66
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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67
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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68
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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69
merge
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| v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体 | |
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70
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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71
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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72
asseverated
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| v.郑重声明，断言( asseverate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
conclusively
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| adv.令人信服地，确凿地 | |
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74
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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75
effusive
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| adj.热情洋溢的；感情(过多)流露的 | |
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76
imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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77
emulated
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| v.与…竞争( emulate的过去式和过去分词 )；努力赶上；计算机程序等仿真；模仿 | |
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78
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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79
dubbed
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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80
revels
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| n.作乐( revel的名词复数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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81
aplomb
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| n.沉着，镇静 | |
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82
dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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84
mumbles
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| 含糊的话或声音，咕哝( mumble的名词复数 ) | |
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85
alluding
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| 提及，暗指( allude的现在分词 ) | |
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86
relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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87
plaintively
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| adv.悲哀地，哀怨地 | |
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88
satiety
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| n.饱和；(市场的)充分供应 | |
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89
appallingly
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| 毛骨悚然地 | |
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90
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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91
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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92
elicited
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| 引出，探出( elicit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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93
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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94
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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95
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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96
wringing
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| 淋湿的，湿透的 | |
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97
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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98
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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99
thwarts
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| 阻挠( thwart的第三人称单数 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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100
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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101
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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102
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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103
blighting
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| 使凋萎( blight的现在分词 )； 使颓丧； 损害； 妨害 | |
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104
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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105
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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106
sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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107
denuded
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| 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 | |
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108
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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109
crochet
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| n.钩针织物；v.用钩针编制 | |
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110
dabbing
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| 石面凿毛，灰泥抛毛 | |
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111
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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112
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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113
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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114
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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115
savageness
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| 天然，野蛮 | |
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116
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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117
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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118
tragically
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| adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地 | |
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119
rabble
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| n.乌合之众，暴民；下等人 | |
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120
porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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121
earthenware
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| n.土器，陶器 | |
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harp
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| n.竖琴；天琴座 | |
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123
boors
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| n.农民( boor的名词复数 )；乡下佬；没礼貌的人；粗野的人 | |
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clattered
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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baggy
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| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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pouted
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| v.撅（嘴）( pout的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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129
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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131
gainsaid
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| v.否认，反驳( gainsay的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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132
amenities
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| n.令人愉快的事物；礼仪；礼节；便利设施；礼仪( amenity的名词复数 )；便利设施；（环境等的）舒适；（性情等的）愉快 | |
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133
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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circumspect
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| adj.慎重的，谨慎的 | |
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bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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haughtily
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| adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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preponderated
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| v.超过，胜过( preponderate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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recondite
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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140
utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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sedulously
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| ad.孜孜不倦地 | |
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142
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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143
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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disdained
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| 鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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145
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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148
flirtation
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| n.调情，调戏，挑逗 | |
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eligible
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| adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
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150
paucity
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| n.小量，缺乏 | |
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151
incipient
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| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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152
predilection
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| n.偏好 | |
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153
complement
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| n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足 | |
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sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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157
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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wrest
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| n.扭，拧，猛夺；v.夺取，猛扭，歪曲 | |
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nominal
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| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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160
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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161
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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