Atalanta Drummond was probably only going as far as Darlington, where, as everybody knew, she had relations. But still her presence in the same train was a dangerous and delightful5 fact. Mrs. Elles felt all the exhilaration of a superior criminal evading6 the pursuit of justice and forthwith planned to play an exciting game of hide-and-seek with her unwitting fellow-traveller. She would man?uvre the most carefully-arranged, hair-breadth escapes from the unconscious pursuer. How nice it was to be running{48} away, so to speak, and how it at once removed everything from the region of the commonplace!
She got out of her carriage at Darlington, and looked about the great station. She was one of those persons in whom the mere7 sight of a telegraph office immediately inspires a desire to send a message of some sort, and she at once went into the bureau and proceeded to compose a wire to Mortimer.
“Gone away for the present; do not be anxious about me. Ph?be.” Then she crossed out “for the present” and substituted “for a change.”
“I don’t want him to be dragging the Tyne for me!” she thought. “That is, if his affection for me should prompt him to such an extreme course, which I do not think it would.”
When she got back to her carriage, a porter was engaged in putting some effects into the rack, which she at once recognized as belonging to Miss Drummond. In spite of her plans, terror then filled her soul. Had that young lady recognized her? Was she intending to join her for the pleasure of her company? Or was it only because this was a through carriage to London?
The poor, hunted creature dared not stay to ascertain9, but, seizing her bag, jumped out and searched wildly for another compartment10. She was bewildered and uncertain. Nobody helped her or took any interest in her, because she was unattractive, so she thought, and the end of it was that the London train moved on without her, as trains will.{49}
She watched it steaming out of the station, but she was far too much excited to care. There happened to be another train, just like it, on the other side of the station, about to go westwards to Barnard Castle.
“Scott’s Rokeby!” she said to herself. Scott was not one of her modern gods, but still the names—famous and familiar to everyone—“Brignal Banks” and Greta Bridge—had a certain old-world magic of their own. So, acting11 on the inspiration of the moment, she took a ticket for Barnard Castle, and at twelve o’clock found herself in the market-place of the sleepy little town on the Tees, in front of a char-à-banc full of tourists just starting for Rokeby, four miles off. She took a seat.
Once arrived there, she declined to make the tour of the famous Park with a guide and a noisy party of barbarians12, with fern-leaves artlessly stuck behind their ears, but, leaving her bag in charge of the obliging porter at the gates, whom the more effectually to cajole she took off her spectacles for a second, started on a voyage of discovery in the opposite direction, across the bridge, following the course of the Greta, along a cart track in a wood, to the east. She did not in the least know where this path would lead her; she only knew that she was extremely happy. She felt just as she imagined the young journeyman heroes in the tales of Grimm must have felt when they walked, knapsack in hand, to seek their fortunes. She walked with an assured step, she sang to{50} herself, she listened to the jubilant song of the mounting larks13 that came from the fields on the other side of the river, she enjoyed the country as only a town-bred person can; she actually experienced the joy of life she had read about so often. “I have not seen enough of nature!” she said to herself, as one says of a friend who lives a long way off, and whom one has somehow neglected. Tags of poetry, scraps14 of philosophy, queer mythological15 ideas, born of her miscellaneous reading, about the Earth Mother and the Earth Spirit, passed through her mind. What a terribly artificial life it was that she had been leading! Nature was the real thing after all!
And meantime, at home in smoky, sophisticated Newcastle, Mortimer and Mrs. Poynder and Charles would be sitting down to the substantial midday meal that their souls loved, and that she had carefully ordered for them before she left, as a valedictory16 service. She pictured the complacent17 three, pent up in the hideous18, stuffy19 dining-room (Mortimer’s taste—she was only permitted jurisdiction20 over the drawing-room), with all the windows fast closed down in accordance with that innate21 dislike of fresh air inherent in some persons, and a blazing fire for the crown of discomfort22.
She, whose spiritual needs were being so thoroughly23 satisfied, for once, was not in the least materially hungry, and, if she became so, would eat roots like other heroines before her. There must be plenty of things edible24 in this luxuriance of undergrowth in{51} which she was wandering, where all possible forms of vegetable life seemed literally25 crushing one another out in their mutual26 excess and exuberance27. There were great, flame-coloured fungi28 glistering from the boles of enormous beech29 trees whose leaves grew so closely that, although the hot July sun, she knew, was beating outside on their thick panoply30, she yet was able to walk at ease in their cool penumbra31. Beds of magnificent nettles32, and the broad, green discs of what the children call “fairy tables” filled all the hollows of the dells. Here and there, tall-stemmed, pale lilac campanulas rose and lightened the gloom through which the sunbeams pierced in vivid streaks33, like golden spears probing the dimness. The low bank of red sandstone that formed the background to the grove34 showed at intervals35 like a rosy36 wall, but on the opposite side the character of the country had changed; there were no more meadows; she was hemmed37 in; the granite38 cliff rose sheer, clothed with trees that found but a scanty39 purchase in the rocky clefts40 to which they seemed to cling frantically41 with hoary42 roots upturned, detached almost, the relative positions of roots and boughs43 nearly reversed. The call of the wood-pigeons that nested in these coverts—she sentimentally45 called them doves—came to her across the river that flowed along beside her, red like wine, over shiny stones and deep, rocky crevices46 that modified the sound of its ripples48 into a thousand musical varieties.
She was in an ecstasy49. To herself she murmured,{52} softly, Rossetti’s lines about the “Banks in Willow50 Wood”:
and was in a mood to utter invocations to the “spotted snakes, with double tongue,” that must be lurking52 in those dark beds of hoary nettles. She was a well-read woman, and had her poets at her fingers’ ends, for use, not ornament53, since she so frequently quoted them. She walked on, imagining that she heard the interesting rustle54 of wild animals that her footsteps affrighted, and presently, out of pure caprice, left the path and began to clamber up the bank, in the vague aspiration55 after blackberries in July.
The dell began to widen out, and the river, which up to that time had flowed in a more or less massive and self-contained flood, began to spread and lose itself in shallows. The noise of many counter-ripples, of the suction of large masses of water pouring into crevices and over many different levels, grew very loud. She stood, as it were, at the end of a funnel56, looking towards a sunlit clearing where the trees grew more thinly and more interspersedly, and the cliffs stood away on either side.
She stopped and stood still, and pushed her spectacles, which she had been wearing very laxly, a little further up her forehead.
“This is like a glimpse of Paradise,” she thought, looking towards the golden space in front of her, “coming as it does, just after this long, cool dark{53} grove that I have been walking in for more than half an hour! That was a kind of Purgatorio. This is a painter’s paradise, I might say, and there is the painter!”
For very nearly under her feet—she was half-way up the sloping bank that sheltered this little oasis57 on the south—was the white calico umbrella planted on its spiked58 stick, like a gigantic mushroom, which Mrs. Elles was well-informed enough to associate at once with the painter’s craft.
The painter was, of course, seated on his camp-stool under it, and she looked down on the back of his sunburnt neck and noticed the way his hair curled a little on it. One rash step would bring her down on him in a helpless rush, for she was not an expert climber and her steps were rendered precarious59 by the crumbly nature of the soil on which she stood.
She settled her spectacles firmly on her nose—“I shall probably fall and break them into my eyes, but it can’t be helped!” and began to skirt round to the left, intending to make a circuit of the umbrella and approach the artist from the front. She had a wild desire to speak to someone. She had actually not opened her lips since ten o’clock that morning, and she was a woman hardly cast by nature for the part of a Trappist! In this lonely place, the least a man could do would be to wish her good day! Then she might possibly go so far as to ask him to tell her the name of the place where she found herself, and a pleasant conversation would thereby60 be inaugurated.
She worked gradually round to him—how ugly the{54} world looked through the wall of cold blue in front of her eyes!—and the continuous ripple47 of the water, flowing over the many obstacles and narrow channels of its bed, effectually drowned the noise of the snapping of dry twigs61 and the breaking of pulpy62 burdock stalks that attended her clumsy progress.
She was almost in front of him—a few yards off only—but he had not raised his head. He did so presently, in the natural course of things, and she made a step forward.
“For God’s sake, mind that foxglove!” he shouted, but, even as he spoke63, it was doomed64 and the splendid column of pink bells fell prone65 to the ground. She stood aghast.
“I beg your pardon!” he said, in a tone as civil as was consistent with the most obvious and excessive irritation66, “but do you know you have completely ruined my foreground?”
“I beg your pardon—oh, ten thousand times!” she replied, ruefully surveying the snapped stem of the injured flower. “But it will grow again, won’t it?”
“Not that one—not this summer—and it came in just right! Well, well; it can’t be helped.... Please don’t apologise!... It is no matter.”
But she continued to apologise, and he to beg her not to do so. The voice in which she conveyed her protestations, however, became more and more feeble. The hot sun was beating down on her head as she stood, and she was conscious of an overpowering faintness and desire to sink down on the desecrated{55} bed of foxgloves and rest; but she felt also very strongly that she must resist and conquer the impulse until she could remove herself to a place beyond the artist’s proximity67.
“You seem faint,” she heard him saying, and his voice, grown gentle now, seemed to come from miles away. “Sit down on this!” and he hastily emptied a bulgy68 canvas sketching70 bag and laid it down beside her. “Now shall I get you some water?”
She was so really ill that she could only nod in response to his offer.
“I have no glass,” he said; “but this little thing will be quite clean when I have washed it out.” He took the japanned tin attached to his water-colour paint box, and ran down to the river to fill it. She watched him.
“How nice of him!” she thought to herself; “and I was just thinking him such a bear; and I spoiled his poor foxglove; and I am so hungry!”
There were several crusts of dry bread lying about which he had thrown out of the canvas bag—how dry she dared not think, but she put out her hand and nibbled71 at one.
“Good Heavens, you must not eat that!” he said, when he came back, raising his eyebrows72. His eyes were quite dark, though his hair was grey. “Mrs. Watson put some sandwiches into my bag this morning, but I regret to say I ate them all half-an-hour ago! I generally take them back with me untouched. How unlucky!{56}”
He raised his voice and called, and after a time a lubberly boy came slouching up.
“Now, Billy Gale73, where the devil have you been? What is the good of you? Go up to the cottage and ask them for a glass of milk and a slice of bread-and-butter—on a plate, mind!”
The boy was off, and he turned to Mrs. Elles, who had drunk her cool, pure river water, and was looking less pale.
“You are very kind to me,” she murmured, “and I know how you must hate being interrupted! Please do go on painting now as if I were not here. I won’t say a single word, and, as soon as I am a little rested, I will go away and leave you in peace.... I am very fond of art!” she added, inconsequently. “I used to do a little myself.”
But the artist seemed to have taken her at her word, and she did not think he could have heard her, as he sat complacently74 dabbling75 his brush in the little water-tin, now restored to its proper use, and then put it to his lips, and then touched his paper with it. There was no colour in the brush, and no particular effect upon the paper, so it seemed to the ignorant tyro76 at his side. In spite of her promise of silence, she could not resist pointing this out to him.
“Don’t be too sure,” he said; “every touch counts.”
“I do wish I might have a look at it!”
She was quite unprepared for the terrible frown that appeared on his mild countenance77 when she preferred this innocent-seeming request.{57}
“You must excuse me, please. I cannot bear to show my things before they are done. I could never work at them again if I did. It is a peculiarity78 of mine—dreadful, but—here is Billy! I am afraid he will have spilt most of the milk by the time he gets here.”
“Mr. Rivers, sir,” said the boy, as soon as he got within earshot, “Farmer says as one o’ they little black pigs—you knows ’em, sir—?”
“Intimately, every one of them,” replied the artist, bitterly. “It’s your business to keep them off me, you young villain79, and instead of that you go and let them rout80 about in my colour box——”
“That’s just it, sir,” Billy answered, grinning joyfully81; “one of ’em has died suddent-like, and Farmer says as how it died along of eating those little sticky things o’ yourn that squeedge in and out.”
“One of my oil-colour tubes! What nonsense! Just go and tell Mr. Ward—no, stop; I’ll speak to him myself, later.” He turned and laughed at Mrs. Elles very pleasantly. “What an absurd thing! But I certainly have missed my Naples yellow, lately.”
She laughed too. “Now I have heard your name,” she said.
“Edmund Rivers.”
“Yes, Edmund Rivers, the famous landscape-painter—you see I know all about your fame—and I have a letter of yours in my pocket.”
As a matter of fact, she had not, she was thinking of the muslin dress she had worn days ago, into whose{58} pocket she had thrust the autograph letter Egidia had given her. The dress was in her bag, lying at the Porter’s lodge82, a mile away. Still it sounded better. The artist luckily did not ask to see the letter, but looked puzzled, and a little displeased83.
“I collect autographs!” she went on hastily, “and Miss Giles—Egidia, you know, the famous novelist—gave it to me. She said she was a relation of yours. She is a great friend of mine, too. I am on my way to stay with her.”
“Oh, indeed!” he said, stiffly.
“But I must ask you,” she went on, clasping her hands together, “not to mention my name to her when you write, or even to say that you have seen me. Please promise?”
“But, my dear madam, I don’t know your name, and am never likely to.”
“Oh, yes; but indeed you must know my name,” she said simply, “Miss Frick.”
It was a pseudonym84 adopted on the spur of the moment; she had known a German governess of the name. Once fairly launched in fiction she went on easily.
“I am the daughter of a country clergyman, and he’s very poor—we are seven—and we all earn our bread. It is a very strange story. My father married again, an odious85 woman none of us could live with. I did type-writing—that is how I weakened my eyes—and then I broke down, and I had to go into the country for my health.{59}”
“I am very sorry to hear all this,” said the artist, languidly.
“Oh, not at all. And then—there was a further complication—there was a man, and he pestered86 me—annoyed me—molested me, in fact, till I got ill. It was not all the fault of the type-writing, you see”—she had a wan, well-executed smile under her veil. “My life was a torment87 to me. He followed me about; he even threatened to shoot me! You may have read about it in the papers.”
“No, I never have.” His voice betrayed no interest.
“People do such dreadful things, sometimes!” she observed, vaguely88, to Nature at large, for the artist had become quite absorbed in his work and seemed to be paying no attention to what she was saying. “He is all the time wishing me at the devil!” she thought to herself, but she did not go. She was perforce silent awhile, but took the opportunity to look closely at and focus this personage who had so completely filled up her field of vision.
“He looks rather like a foreign sailor, such as one sees on the quays90 at Newcastle,” she thought. “He only wants earrings91 to complete the effect. I suppose it is because he is so sunburnt, and his eyes are so dark. They are like brown pools—like the river here, as if they grew like what they looked on. There are all sorts of little wrinkles round them—not money wrinkles, as I always call Mortimer’s—but wrinkles that come of screwing up his eyes to see{60} effects, and shutting one of them altogether now and then, as he is doing. He talks languidly, like a society man, as if everything was a bore, but then his eager eyes are all over the place. I like that greyish hair in so young a man—it is ‘a sable92 silvered,’ as Hamlet said of his father. What a beautiful mouth! It is like a woman’s, and yet it is strong. His moustache hides it a good deal. Well, a mouth like that should not be too obvious to the vulgar eye. It tells too much. He is very thin. I wonder if he is delicate? No, not with a figure like that—he must be strong, and his instep is beautifully arched—that comes of springing about these rocks—people grow flat-footed in Newcastle....”
She started suddenly.
“Why am I sitting here beside a strange man of whose existence I did not even know an hour ago? It is as if I had been here all my life! I ought to go, of course, but where?”
She looked round her distractedly. The sun had declined; the day had changed from morning to afternoon. She had been in this man’s company for nearly two hours, without any excuse beyond her temporary faintness. She got up nervously93, though he did not seem to notice her, and wandered a little way off across the meadow trying to collect her thoughts and make a plan. A curious brown ball lying at the foot of a wild rose tree attracted her attention. She picked it up and, with childish inconsequence, carried it back to the artist to ask him{61} to tell her what it was. Suddenly it uncurled in her hand, and a tiny snout appeared in front of the bristles94! She dropped it with a modish95 scream, and the artist perforce raised his head. He saw the situation at once, and smiled a little. There was a cynical96 twist in his mouth that delighted her.
“Did you say you had been bred in the country?” he asked.
“Why, what is it?”
“Only a hedgehog—a ‘hodgeon,’ as they call them here. Poor thing: it trusted you, you see, and uncurled itself!”
“The darling; I must take it home.”
“I would,” he said dryly, and looked at his watch. “Four o’clock! I must go to my afternoon subject.”
Trembling with apprehension97, she watched him as he took the sketching bag, and rammed98 his sketching things into it. He then summoned Billy to take down the umbrella and follow with it, and shouldering the bag himself, raised his cap civilly, bade her good morning, and was gone.
She sat there stupidly staring at the little yellow patch of trodden grass where his feet had rested, and his camp had been set.
The obvious course was to get up and go; but where? To London? What did she care for London now? And anyhow, it was far too late to go on there that night!{62}
The smoke was rising from the chimneys of the cottage up there on the brow, whence Billy Gale had brought the milk. Was the artist staying there? She cast her eyes vaguely round her as if to ask the mild heavens for help, and saw the boy in the distance, sitting kicking his heels about on a dry rock, in mid-stream, not far from his master, presumably!
Then she rose, having conceived a reckless plan of action which she felt the necessity of putting into execution at once; for if she were to allow herself to think it over, she would never be able to bring herself to do it at all. She beckoned100 to Billy Gale, and asked him to be so good as to direct her to Mr. Rivers’ “afternoon subject” as she had heard him call it.
The lad stared, but obediently led her to a place about a quarter of a mile further down the river, opposite a ruined church, and a church garth full of antique, wooden headstones, smothered101 in burdock leaves; a scene of beautiful desolation.
Mr. Rivers was standing102, sketch69 book in hand, on a little beach of pebbles103 under the shelving, undercut bank, executing with incredible dexterity104 what looked like meaningless parabolic curves, with a hard lead pencil. His back was turned to her. She jumped down the bank, and, though the crunching105 of the pebbles under her feet, and the sound of her own voice, affrighted her, managed to pluck up courage to address him.
“I must apologise for troubling you again—but you{63} were so very kind to me before—perhaps you would not mind telling me if there is any—if I could find any accommodation here?”
“No, none!” he replied hastily, without even turning round.
After an appreciable106 pause he added, unwillingly107, “At least—there’s an inn a mile off—about a mile——”
“But that is what I mean!” she cried, joyfully. “And is that where you stop?”
“Oh, yes, I suppose so, but I warn you—I, of course, can put up with anything—it is very rough, very rough indeed. They are not good hands at cooking—I have had a chop a day for the last fortnight. And the beds are very hard!”
“I don’t happen to mind that sort of thing at all.”
“I chose it for quiet,” he went on, pathetically. “The landlady110 is a good soul, who understands my little ways, but——”
“That quite decides me——”
“They may have a room—I am sure I don’t know—but I should advise you not——”
“I should not be in your way at all,” she went on, barefacedly111 assuming her acquaintance with the remoter causes of his feeble degree of encouragement, and smiling sweetly into his blank face, “in fact, I should be a comfort to you—I mean, I am very quiet,{64} and if I occupy the room, no one else can, don’t you see? I should at any rate serve to keep noisier people out.”
“There is something in that!” he observed, as if to himself.
“So I will go along and see,” she went on, pursuing her advantage.
“My lad can show you a short cut over the river,” was the painter’s unexpected rejoinder. She was not deceived by his mildness. He only wanted to get rid of her, and the moment he had spoken he turned round and resumed his drawing again.
“Delightful, but not quite human,” she thought to herself.
His “lad,” with frank confidence in her power of accommodation to somewhat unusual methods of progression, piloted her across the river by way of a rough bridge of stepping stones, apparently half natural, half artificial, and then led her by many a varied112 and devious113 track, through a succession of brambly coppices, and over many stiles of many patterns, tantalizing114 enough to a town-bred woman. She enjoyed it, however, and was proud of her newly-discovered powers, as she surmounted115 one unusual impediment after another, and was as quick about it as the long-legged country lad who guided her. Then they crossed a couple of upland pastures where the great, mild-eyed cows were grazing, and half-turning their heads to look at her and Billy Gale, who left her no time to be afraid of them, and at last the{65} slender smoke spirals from the chimneys of a little homestead rose in sight.
“The Heather Bell” was an old-fashioned coaching inn on the outskirts116 of the great park of Rokeby, and opposite one of its gates. The enormous beech trees leaned over the high Park wall and shadowed the inn that was only separated from it by the width of the road, and whose windows were darkened at noonday by their shade. The inn itself was a large, straggling building, with a low-pitched, tiled roof covered with houseleek. A bushy, garish-coloured garden on the south side, full of flowers, reached to where the fields ended. A woman was standing under the rose-hung porch, shading her eyes with her hand.
“Yon’s the Mistress!” said Billy Gale, suddenly, “and she owes me a skelping, so I think I’ll just mak’ myself skarse!” He bolted, and just in time, for the landlady came striding up the garden path with obviously less zeal117 for the welcoming of the guest than for Billy Gale’s discomfiture118.
“Little, idle good-for-nought!” exclaimed she, shaking her fist in the direction of his recalcitrant119 back. “Is this the proper way for to bring fowk in? What’s the front entrance for? Good morning, Mem. Coom in this way, since ye are here!”
Mrs. Elles asked for a bedroom, and was told that she could have one.
“It’s a bit smarl, but ye’re no very big yersel’,” said the landlady, tenderly patronizing her already. People always did. “Coom, an’ I’se show ye!...{66} Ye’ll be a penter, too, will ye?” she enquired120, on the way upstairs. “Lord love ye, there’s heaps on ’em cooms here! It’s a fine place for such as them! There’s the Joonction—the Greta and the Tees, ye know, and the Dairy Bridge and Mortham Tower, they’re all bonnie—ye’se find plenty for to ockipy ye here. We’ve got a grand artiss here now.... That’s his room, see ye, next yours—ye’ll mebbies have seen his pectewers in Lunnon, Mem?”
“Miss,” corrected Mrs. Elles.
“He’s a permanent lodger121 like. It’s a matter o’ ten year since he first coomed here, seeking rooms. I seed he was a painter lad at onst, and I says to my man—I had a man then—‘Tak’ him, George, and ye’ll ne’er repent122 it! He’ll be out a’ the day long a dirtying o’ bits of nice clean paper, and amusing hisself, and no trouble at all!’... Well, he’ll be in soon to his bit denner. Ye’ll be having a chop to yer tea, along of he?”
“Oh, but can’t I have a sitting-room124 of my own?”
“Nay, we haven’t another setting-room, honey. There’s only the big meetin’-room, ye know—’tis only fit for picnic parties, and sich like—but Mr. Rivers is a nice quiet body; he’ll not be in your way, I promise ye.”
But Mrs. Elles, whatever her private wishes might have been, was resolved not to have any appearance of intruding125 on the hermit126 painter; and six o’clock—for she was ridiculously, umromantically hungry—found her established at a corner of a long-rudimen{67}tary, wooden table, built on trestles, that ran the whole length of a bare, barn-like room, evidently a recent addition to the comfortable old coaching inn, for it was high-pitched, with three tall sash windows, and the walls distempered in French grey. The floor was sanded, and its raftered ceiling was not free from spiders, that ever and anon made terrifying voyages of discovery down their shadowy webs to the end of the long table that was spread with a coarse, white cloth for her benefit.
She was struck, amid all this roughness and rusticity127, with the white, well-tended hands that served her. It was not a servant who stood behind her chair, and who was continually addressed from afar by the landlady as “Jane Anne!” Jane Anne was a short, thick-set young woman in a well-made black dress, and an opulent watch-chain. Mrs. Elles did not like her face, with its heavy chin and sullen128 eyes and masses of crisped black hair parted carefully on a low forehead, or the mincing129 Cockney pronunciation, grafted130 on a native Yorkshire accent, with which the girl answered the trifling131 questions she asked her. She wore no cap or apron132, and performed her service with a silent concentration which showed that it was not her usual vocation51. To all Mrs. Elles’ remarks she replied civilly, but with a suggestion of closure in each answer. Mrs. Elles took a strong dislike to her at once.
The three windows of the room opened on to the garden, the main path of which led by a slight{68} upward gradient to the wicket gate and the series of upland pastures which she had traversed a few hours before on her way back from Brignal. That, she had ascertained133, was the name of the place where she had first met Mr. Rivers. He must surely be even now crossing them on his way home from his work. She went across to the window and leaned out, and gazed disconsolately134 towards the empty sunset sky.
Two pretty brown cows were leaning over and rubbing their noses against the stumps135 of the gate, lowing gently for human sympathy. Suddenly their heads were persuasively136 pushed aside, and the painter appeared, silhouetted137 against the saffron background. He stroked them, and then coming through, closed the gate carefully against their obtrusive138 noses. Mrs. Elles watched him as he walked down the path, pebbly139 and uneven140 with the washing down of previous heavy rains, between the low espalier pear trees, and disappeared under the porch a few yards to the left. Then, with a little suppressed sigh, she withdrew her gaze from the gleaming sky and turned sharply, to find the body of the girl who had waited on her at dinner in close proximity to her own.
The girl had evidently been watching the painter’s entry, too, over her unsuspecting shoulders. Mrs. Elles conceived a violent dislike to her, which, in her wilful141 way, she was at no pains to hide.
Everybody here seemed to be attached to Mr. Rivers. Through the open door of the room, she heard the landlady’s ecstatic welcome to him as he{69} passed under the rose-hung porch of the “Heather Bell.” “Well, and here ye coom, sir!” as of one receiving a cherished lamb back into the fold. Presently, the listening woman heard him walk wearily into his sitting-room—it happened to be next door to the kind of annex142 in which she was—and close the door.
She now felt strangely and unutterably lonely. What had she come here for? During the rest of the evening, she sat in a hard cane143 chair by the window, and leaned her elbow on the equally hard stone sill. The light slowly faded out of the sky and the scent144 of the nightstocks came to her in sweet, overpowering wafts145, and the evening primroses146 opened wider and wider till they seemed to shine like yellow moons in the dusky garden beds. Then the real moon came out, and still she could smell nothing but the sweet smells of the garden and she wondered whether Mr. Rivers would begin to smoke enormous strong cigars or a horrid147 pipe, like Mortimer, and thus kill all the poetry of the evening. His window was next to the one out of which she was now leaning, and it was wide open. Her window was raw and square, his was smothered in the leaves of an immense pear which she had noticed as she came in, growing, in stiffly arranged branches like a genealogical tree, all over the southern side of the house.
No, he was not smoking! What was he doing? She suddenly conceived the notion of going out of doors—of taking a walk in the Park, that is, if the{70} porter would allow her to pass at this hour. She would see the famous yew148 grove she had read of, dark at noonday, and positively149 sepulchral150 at night, where the White Lady of Mortham walked and bewailed her unnamed woes151. She would listen to the mysterious “hum” beetles152, which served for “tuck of drum” to marshal the gallant153 outlaws154 of the ballad:—
“Oh, Brignal Banks are fresh and fair,
And Greta woods are green;
I’d rather rove with Edmund there
“How strange his name should be Edmund, too!”
So musing123, she went out. She did not trouble to put on a hat, and she took off her tiresome155 spectacles and put them in her pocket, for it had grown so dark that, even if anyone were to meet her going out of the inn door, he would not be able to see her face with any degree of clearness.
But when she got into the hall, she changed her mind capriciously and went into the garden instead of the Park.
As she passed the window of his room, she noticed that the white linen156 blind was not drawn157 down, and the lighted lamp inside showed the table with its queer, old-fashioned, rose-embroidered cloth, all littered with the paraphernalia158 of an artist’s work, and the artist himself intently bending over a sepia sketch lying in front of him.
He had evidently forgotten her very existence!
No wonder! A plain woman with smoked spectacles and a bald forehead. So she characterized herself. That was all she had allowed him to see of her. She stood there for a very long time, watching him, her hand raised to her face ready to veil it in case he should look up. She had no scruples159, for if he had objected to being looked at, he would have pulled down the blind.
Every now and then, a ripe pear, ruined by the insidious160 wasp161 that preyed162 on it secretly, fell heavily down on the sodden163 earth under the window, and startled her, but he never raised his head. She ceased to expect him to do so, and stood at ease, listening to the various puzzling night sounds and quite unconscious of the flight of time. Queer noises came from the great, mysterious demesne164 on the other side of the house—that excess of rank foliage165 in which it seemed that every known variety of animal might find a home; it was so “whick,” in local parlance166, so full of all the forms of sylvan167 life, crawling, creeping, rustling168 in among the long grasses and twisted boughs all through the summer night. Presently, the short, sharp bark of a fox, that came from the covert44, did penetrate169 to his ears through the thickness of the pane170; he looked up, seemed to stare at her, and she fled.
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1
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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2
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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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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5
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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6
evading
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| 逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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7
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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8
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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9
ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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10
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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12
barbarians
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| n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 )；外国人；粗野的人；无教养的人 | |
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13
larks
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| n.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的名词复数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了v.百灵科鸟（尤指云雀）( lark的第三人称单数 )；一大早就起床；鸡鸣即起；（因太费力而不想干时说）算了 | |
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14
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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15
mythological
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| adj.神话的 | |
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16
valedictory
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| adj.告别的；n.告别演说 | |
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17
complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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18
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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19
stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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20
jurisdiction
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| n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权 | |
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21
innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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22
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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23
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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24
edible
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| n.食品，食物；adj.可食用的 | |
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25
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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26
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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27
exuberance
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| n.丰富；繁荣 | |
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28
fungi
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| n.真菌，霉菌 | |
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29
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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30
panoply
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| n.全副甲胄，礼服 | |
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31
penumbra
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| n.（日蚀）半影部 | |
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32
nettles
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| n.荨麻( nettle的名词复数 ) | |
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33
streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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34
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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35
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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36
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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37
hemmed
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| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
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38
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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39
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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40
clefts
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| n.裂缝( cleft的名词复数 )；裂口；cleave的过去式和过去分词；进退维谷 | |
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41
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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42
hoary
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| adj.古老的；鬓发斑白的 | |
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43
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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44
covert
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| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
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45
sentimentally
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| adv.富情感地 | |
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46
crevices
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| n.（尤指岩石的）裂缝，缺口( crevice的名词复数 ) | |
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47
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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48
ripples
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| 逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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49
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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50
willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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51
vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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52
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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53
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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54
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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55
aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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56
funnel
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| n.漏斗；烟囱；v.汇集 | |
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57
oasis
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| n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方 | |
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58
spiked
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| adj.有穗的；成锥形的；有尖顶的 | |
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59
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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60
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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61
twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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62
pulpy
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| 果肉状的，多汁的，柔软的； 烂糊； 稀烂 | |
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63
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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64
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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65
prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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66
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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67
proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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68
bulgy
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| a.膨胀的；凸出的 | |
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69
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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70
sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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71
nibbled
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| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的过去式和过去分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
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72
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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73
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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74
complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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75
dabbling
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| v.涉猎( dabble的现在分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资 | |
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76
tyro
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| n.初学者；生手 | |
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77
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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78
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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79
villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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80
rout
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| n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮 | |
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81
joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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82
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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83
displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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84
pseudonym
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| n.假名，笔名 | |
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85
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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86
pestered
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| 使烦恼，纠缠( pester的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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87
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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88
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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89
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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90
quays
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| 码头( quay的名词复数 ) | |
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91
earrings
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| n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子 | |
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92
sable
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| n.黑貂；adj.黑色的 | |
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93
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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94
bristles
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| 短而硬的毛发，刷子毛( bristle的名词复数 ) | |
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95
modish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的 | |
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96
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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97
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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98
rammed
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| v.夯实（土等）( ram的过去式和过去分词 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输 | |
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99
runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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100
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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101
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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102
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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103
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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104
dexterity
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| n.(手的)灵巧，灵活 | |
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105
crunching
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| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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106
appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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107
unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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108
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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109
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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110
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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111
barefacedly
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| adv.不戴面具； 不要脸； 无耻； 露骨 | |
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112
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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113
devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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114
tantalizing
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| adj.逗人的；惹弄人的；撩人的；煽情的v.逗弄，引诱，折磨( tantalize的现在分词 ) | |
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115
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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116
outskirts
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| n.郊外，郊区 | |
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117
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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118
discomfiture
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| n.崩溃；大败；挫败；困惑 | |
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119
recalcitrant
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| adj.倔强的 | |
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120
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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121
lodger
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| n.寄宿人，房客 | |
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122
repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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123
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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124
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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125
intruding
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| v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的现在分词)；把…强加于 | |
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126
hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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127
rusticity
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| n.乡村的特点、风格或气息 | |
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128
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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129
mincing
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| adj.矫饰的；v.切碎；切碎 | |
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130
grafted
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| 移植( graft的过去式和过去分词 )； 嫁接； 使（思想、制度等）成为（…的一部份）； 植根 | |
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131
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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132
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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133
ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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disconsolately
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| adv.悲伤地，愁闷地；哭丧着脸 | |
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135
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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136
persuasively
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| adv.口才好地；令人信服地 | |
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137
silhouetted
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| 显出轮廓的，显示影像的 | |
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138
obtrusive
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| adj.显眼的；冒失的 | |
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139
pebbly
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| 多卵石的，有卵石花纹的 | |
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140
uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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141
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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142
annex
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| vt.兼并，吞并；n.附属建筑物 | |
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143
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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144
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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145
wafts
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| n.空中飘来的气味，一阵气味( waft的名词复数 )；摇转风扇v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的第三人称单数 ) | |
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146
primroses
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| n.报春花( primrose的名词复数 )；淡黄色；追求享乐（招至恶果） | |
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147
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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148
yew
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| n.紫杉属树木 | |
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149
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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150
sepulchral
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| adj.坟墓的，阴深的 | |
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151
woes
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| 困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉 | |
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152
beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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153
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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154
outlaws
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| 歹徒，亡命之徒( outlaw的名词复数 )； 逃犯 | |
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155
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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156
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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157
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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158
paraphernalia
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| n.装备；随身用品 | |
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159
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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160
insidious
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| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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161
wasp
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| n.黄蜂，蚂蜂 | |
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162
preyed
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| v.掠食( prey的过去式和过去分词 )；掠食；折磨；（人）靠欺诈为生 | |
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163
sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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164
demesne
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| n.领域，私有土地 | |
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165
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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166
parlance
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| n.说法；语调 | |
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167
sylvan
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| adj.森林的 | |
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168
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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169
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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170
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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