It would have been my pleasure had I seen.
“Why did he come back?”
Jocelyn had risen as if to intimate that, if he cared to do so, they would sit in the verandah.
“Why did Mr. Durnovo come back?” she repeated; for Jack1 did not seem to have heard the question. He was drawing forward a cane2 chair with the leisurely3 debonnair grace that was his, and, before replying, he considered for a moment.
“To get quinine,” he answered.
Without looking at her, he seemed to divine that he had made a mistake. He seemed to know that she had flushed suddenly to the roots of her hair, with a distressed4 look in her eyes. The reason was too trivial. She could only draw one conclusion.
“No,” he continued; “to tell you the truth, I think his nerve gave way a little. His health is undermined by this climate. He has been too long in Africa. We have had a bad time at Msala. We have had small-pox in the camp. Oscard and I have been doing doughty5 deeds. I feel convinced that, if we applied6 to some Society, we should get something or other—a testimonial or a monument—also Joseph.”
“I like Joseph,” she said in a low tone.
“So do I. If circumstances had been different—if Joseph had not been my domestic servant—I should have liked him for a friend.”
He was looking straight in front of him with a singular fixity. It is possible that he was conscious of the sidelong scrutiny7 which he was undergoing.
“And you—you have been all right?” she said lightly.
“Oh, yes,” with a laugh. “I have not brought the infection down to Loango; you need not be afraid of that.”
For a moment she looked as if she were going to explain that she was not “afraid of that.” Then she changed her mind and let it pass, as he seemed to believe.
“Joseph constructed a disinfecting room with a wood-smoke fire, or something of that description, and he has been disinfecting everything, down to Oscard's pipes.”
She gave a little laugh, which stopped suddenly.
“Was it very bad?” she asked.
“Oh, no. We took it in time, you see. We had eleven deaths. And now we are all right. We are only waiting for Durnovo to join, and then we shall make a start. Of course, somebody else could have come down for the quinine.”
“Yes.”
“But, as Durnovo's nerves were a little shaken, it—was just as well, don't you know, to get him out of it all.”
“I suppose he got himself out of it all?” she said quietly.
“Well—to a certain extent. With our approval, you understand.”
Men have an esprit de sexe as well as women. They like to hustle9 the cowards through with the crowd, unobserved.
“It is a strange thing,” said Jocelyn, with a woman's scorn of the man who fears those things of which she herself has no sort of dread10, “a very strange thing, that Mr. Durnovo said nothing about it down here. It is not known in Loango that you had small-pox in the camp.”
“Well, you see, when he left we were not quite sure about it.”
“I imagine Mr. Durnovo knows all about small-pox. We all do on this coast. He could hardly help recognising it in its earliest stage.”
She turned on him with a smile which he remembered afterwards. At the moment he felt rather abashed11, as if he had been caught in a very maze12 of untruths. He did not meet her eyes. It was a matter of pride with him that he was equal to any social emergency that might arise. He had always deemed himself capable of withholding13 from the whole questioning world anything that he might wish to withhold14. But afterwards—later in his life—he remembered that look in Jocelyn Gordon's face.
“Altogether,” she said, with a peculiar15 little contented16 laugh, “I think you cannot keep it up any longer. He ran away from you and left you to fight against it alone. All the same, it was—nice—of you to try and screen him. Very nice, but I do not think that I could have done it myself. I suppose it was—noble—and women cannot be noble.”
“No, it was only expedient17. The best way to take the world is to wring18 it dry—not to try and convert it and make it better, but to turn its vices19 to account. That method has the double advantage of serving one's purpose at the time, and standing21 as a warning later. The best way to cure vice20 is to turn it ruthlessly to one's own account. That is what we are doing with Durnovo. His little idiosyncrasies will turn in witness against him later on.”
She shook her head in disbelief.
“Your practice and your theory do not agree,” she said.
There was a little pause; then she turned to him gravely.
“Have you been vaccinated22?” she asked.
“In the days of my baptism, wherein I was made—”
“No doubt,” she interrupted impatiently, “but since? Have you had it done lately?”
“Just before I came away from England. My tailor urged it so strongly. He said that he had made outfits23 for many gents going to Africa, and they had all made their wills and been vaccinated. For reasons which are too painful to dwell upon in these pages I could not make a will, so I was enthusiastically vaccinated.”
“And have you all the medicines you will require? Did you really want that quinine?”
There was a practical, common-sense anxiety in the way she asked these questions which made him answer gravely.
“All, thanks. We did not really want the quinine, but we can do with it. Oscard is our doctor; he is really very good. He looks it all up in a book, puts all the negative symptoms on one side, and the positive on the other—adds them all up, then deducts24 the smaller from the larger, and treats what is left of the patient accordingly.”
She laughed, more with the view of pleasing him than from a real sense of the ludicrous.
“I do not believe,” she said, “that you know the risks you are running into. Even in the short time that Maurice and I have been here we have learnt to treat the climate of Western Africa with a proper respect. We have known so many people who have—succumbed.”
“Yes, but I do not mean to do that. In a way, Durnovo's—what shall we call it?—lack of nerve is a great safeguard. He will not run into any danger.”
“No, but he might run you into it.”
“Not a second time, Miss Gordon. Not if we know it. Oscard mentioned a desire to wring Durnovo's neck. I am afraid he will do it one of these days.”
“The mistake that most people make,” the girl went on more lightly, “is a want of care. You cannot be too careful, you know, in Africa.”
“I am careful; I have reason to be.”
“Yes?” she said slowly, and there were a thousand questions in the word.
“It would be very foolish of me to be otherwise,” he said. “I am engaged to be married, and I came out here to make the wherewithal. This expedition is an expedition to seek the wherewithal.”
“Yes,” she said, “and therefore you must be more careful than any one else. Because, you see, your life is something which does not belong to you, but with which you are trusted. I mean, if there is anything dangerous to be done, let some one else do it. What is she like? What is her name?”
“Her name is Millicent—Millicent Chyne.”
“And—what is she like?”
He leant back, and, interlocking his fingers, stretched his arms out with the palms of his hands outward—a habit of his when asked a question needing consideration.
“She is of medium height; her hair is brown. Her worst enemy admits, I believe, that she is pretty. Of course, I am convinced of it.”
“Of course,” replied Jocelyn steadily. “That is as it should be. And I have no doubt that you and her worst enemy are both quite right.”
He nodded cheerfully, indicating a great faith in his own judgment26 on the matter under discussion.
“I am afraid,” he said, “that I have not a photograph. That would be the correct thing, would it not? I ought to have one always with me in a locket round my neck, or somewhere. A curiously27-wrought28 locket is the correct thing, I believe. People in books usually carry something of that description—and it is always curiously wrought. I don't know where they buy them.”
“I think they are usually inherited,” suggested Jocelyn.
“I suppose they are,” he went on in the same semi-serious tone. “And then I ought to have it always ready to clasp in my dying hand, where Joseph would find it and wipe away a furtive29 tear as he buried me. It is a pity. I am afraid I inherited nothing from my ancestors except a very practical mind.”
“I should have liked very much to see a photograph of Miss Chyne,” said Jocelyn, who had, apparently30, not been listening.
“Only a few more years now. Has she—are her parents living?”
“No, they are both dead. Indian people they were. Indian people have a tragic32 way of dying young. Millicent lives with her aunt, Lady Cantourne. And Lady Cantourne ought to have married my respected father.”
“Why did she not do so?”
He shrugged33 his shoulders—paused—sat up and flicked34 a large moth35 off the arm of his chair. Then,
“Goodness only knows,” he said. “Goodness, and themselves. I suppose they found it out too late. That is one of the little risks of life.”
She answered nothing.
“Do you think,” he went on, “that there will be a special Hell in the Hereafter for parents who have sacrificed their children's lives to their own ambition? I hope there will be.”
“I have never given the matter the consideration it deserves,” she answered. “Was that the reason? Is Lady Cantourne a more important person than Lady Meredith?”
“Yes.”
She gave a little nod of comprehension, as if he had raised a curtain for her to see into his life—into the far perspective of it, reaching back into the dim distance of fifty years before. For our lives do reach back into the lives of our fathers and grandfathers; the beginnings made there come down into our daily existence, shaping our thought and action. That which stood between Sir John Meredith and his son was not so much the present personality of Millicent Chyne as the past shadows of a disappointed life, an unloved wife and an unsympathetic mother. And these things Jocelyn Gordon knew while she sat, gazing with thoughtful eyes, wherein something lived and burned of which she was almost ignorant—gazing through the tendrils of the creeping flowers that hung around them.
At last Jack Meredith rose briskly, watch in hand, and Jocelyn came back to things of earth with a quick gasping36 sigh which took her by surprise.
“Miss Gordon, will you do something for me?”
“With pleasure.”
He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and, going to the table, he wrote on the paper with a pencil pendent at his watch-chain.
“The last few days,” he explained while he wrote, “have awakened37 me to the lamentable38 fact that human life is rather an uncertain affair.”
He came towards her, holding out the paper.
“If you hear—if anything happens to me, would you be so kind as to write to Millicent and tell her of it? That is the address.”
She took the paper, and read the address with a dull sort of interest.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, if you like. But—nothing must happen to you.”
There was a slight unsteadiness in her voice, which made her stop suddenly. She did not fold the paper, but continued to read the address.
“No,” he said, “nothing will. But would you not despise a man who could not screw up his courage to face the possibility?”
He wondered what she was thinking about, for she did not seem to hear him.
A clock in the drawing-room behind them struck the half-hour, and the sound seemed to recall her to the present.
“Are you going now?” she asked.
She rose, and for a moment he held her hand. He was distinctly conscious of something left unsaid—of many things. He even paused on the edge of the verandah, trying to think what it was that he had to say. Then he pushed aside the hanging flowers and passed out.
“Good-bye!” he said over his shoulder.
Her lips moved, but he heard no sound. She turned with a white, drawn40 face and sat down again. The paper was still in her hand. She consulted it again, reading in a whisper:
“Millicent Chyne—Millicent!”
She turned the paper over and studied the back of it—almost as if she was trying to find what there was behind that name.
Through the trees there rose and fell the music of the distant surf. Somewhere near at hand a water-wheel, slowly irrigating41 the rice-fields, creaked and groaned42 after the manner of water-wheels all over Africa. In all there was that subtle sense of unreality—that utter lack of permanency which touches the heart of the white exile in tropic lands, and lets life slip away without allowing the reality of it to be felt.
The girl sat there with the name before her—written on the little slip of paper—the only memento43 he had left her.
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1
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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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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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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doughty
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| adj.勇猛的，坚强的 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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9
hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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11
abashed
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| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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12
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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withholding
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| 扣缴税款 | |
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withhold
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| v.拒绝，不给；使停止，阻挡 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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wring
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| n.扭绞；v.拧，绞出，扭 | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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21
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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vaccinated
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| [医]已接种的，种痘的，接种过疫菌的 | |
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outfits
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| n.全套装备( outfit的名词复数 )；一套服装；集体；组织v.装备，配置设备，供给服装( outfit的第三人称单数 ) | |
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deducts
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| v.扣除，减去( deduct的第三人称单数 ) | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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37
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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38
lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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40
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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41
irrigating
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| 灌溉( irrigate的现在分词 )； 冲洗（伤口） | |
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42
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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43
memento
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| n.纪念品，令人回忆的东西 | |
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