Violet unlocked the door and let in the morn, and shivered at the tonic5. This act of opening the shop-door, though having picked up the milk she at once closed the door again, seemed to mark another stage in the process which Elsie had begun more than two hours earlier; it broke the spell of night by letting in not only the morn but dailiness. She gathered the envelopes together from[Pg 128] the floor, and noticed one with a halfpenny stamp, which she immediately opened—furtively. Yes, it was the gas bill for the September quarter, the quarter which ought to be the lightest of the year. And was not! She deciphered the dread6 total; it affected7 her like an accusation8 of crime, like an impeachment9 for treason. She felt guilty, yet she had done her utmost to "keep the gas down." What would Henry say? She dared not let him see it.... And the electricity bill to follow it in a few days!... Unquestionably Elsie was wasteful10. They were all alike, servants were, and even Elsie was not an exception.
At that moment Henry limped down the stairs. Violet hid the bill and envelope in the pocket of her pinafore-apron11.
"Here are the letters," she said, seizing the little milk-can and moving forward to meet him. "Just put a match to the stove, will you? I'm late."
She went on towards the stairs.
"We surely shan't want the stove to-day," he stopped her. "We haven't needed it yet. It's going to be a beautiful day."
She had had the fire laid in the stove more than a week ago, perceiving, with her insight into human nature, that a fire laid is already half lighted.
"That's all very well for you—for you to talk like that," she laughed, hiding her disquiet12 with devilish duplicity under a display of affectionate banter13. "You're going out, but I have to keep shop."
He was dashed.
"Well, you'll see later on. I won't light it now, at any rate. You'll see later on. Of course you must use your own judgment14, my dear," he added, courteously15, judicial16, splendidly fair.
"Elsie," said Violet, peeping into the bathroom on her way upstairs. "Do you really need that geyser full on all the time?" She spoke17 with nervous exasperation18.
"Well, 'm——"
"I don't know what your master will say when he[Pg 129] sees the gas-bill that's come in this very moment. I really don't. I daren't show it him." She warningly produced the impeachment.
"Well, 'm, I must make the water hot."
"Yes, I know. But please do be as careful as you can."
"Well, 'm, I've nearly finished." And Elsie dramatically turned off the gas-tap of the geyser.
The gloomy bathroom was like a tropic, and the heat very damp. Linen19 hung sodden20 and heavy along the line. The panes21 of the open window were obscured by steam. The walls trickled22 with condensed steam. And Elsie's face and arms were like bedewed beetroot. But to Violet the excessive warmth was very pleasant.
"You didn't have any tea this morning," said she, for she had noticed that nobody had been into the kitchen before herself.
"No, 'm. It's no use. If I'm to get through with my work Monday mornings I can't waste my time getting my tea. And that's all about it, 'm."
Elsie, her brow puckered23, seemed to be actually accusing her mistress of trying to tempt24 her from the path of virtue25. The contract between employers and employed in that house had long since passed, so far as the employed was concerned, far beyond the plane of the commercial. The employers gave ￡20 a year; the employed gave all her existence, faculties26, energy; and gave them with passion, without reserve open or secret, without reason, sublimely27.
"It's her affair," muttered Violet as she mounted to the kitchen to finish preparing breakfast. "It's her affair. If she chooses to work two hours on a Monday morning on an empty stomach, I can't help it." And there followed a shamed little thought: "It saves the gas."
When the breakfast tray was ready she slipped off her blue apron. At the bedroom door she set the tray down on the floor and went into the bedroom to put on the mantle28 which she had already worn that morning as a[Pg 130] seamstress in bed. Before taking the tray again she called out to Elsie:
"Your breakfast's all ready for you, Elsie."
Mr. Earlforward was waiting for her at the dining-room table. He wore his overcoat. In this manner, at his instigation, they proved on chilly29 mornings that they could ignore the outrageous30 exactions of coal trusts and striking colliers.
"What's that?" demanded Henry with well-acted indifference31 as he observed an unusual object on the tray.
"It's a boiled egg. It's for you."
"But I don't want an egg. I never eat eggs."
"But I want you to eat this one." She smiled, cajolingly.
Useless! She was asking too much. He would not eat it.
"It'll be wasted if you don't."
It might be; but he would not be the one to waste it. He calmly ate his bread and margarine, and drank his tea.
"I do think it's too bad of you, Harry32. You're wasting away," she protested in a half-broken voice, and added with still more emotion, daringly, defiantly33: "And what's the use of a husband who doesn't eat enough, I should like to know?"
A fearful silence. Thunder seemed to rumble34 menacingly round the horizon; nature itself cowered35. Henry blushed slightly, pulling at his beard. Then his voice, quiet, bland36, soothing37, sweet, inexorable:
"Up to thirty, eat as much as you can. After thirty, as much as you want. After fifty, as little as you can do with."
"But you aren't fifty!"
"No. But I eat as much as I want. I'm the only judge of how much I want. We're all different. My health is quite good."
"You're thinner."
"I prefer you to be a bit stout—much. It's a good sign in a man."[Pg 131]
"Question of taste," he said with a humorous, affectionate glance at her.
"Oh, Harry!" she exclaimed violently. "You're a funny man." Then she laughed.
The storm had dissipated itself, save in Violet's heart. She knew by instinct, by intuition, beyond any doubt, that Henry deprived himself in order to lessen39 the cost of housekeeping—and this although by agreement she paid half the cost out of her separate income! The fact was, Henry was just as jealous of her income as of his own. She trembled for the future. Then for safety, for relief, she yielded to him in her heart; she trusted; her hope was in the extraordinary strength of his character.
Mr. Earlforward ate little, but he would seldom hurry over a meal. At breakfast he would drink several cups of tea, each succeeding one weaker and colder than the last, and would dally40 at some length with each. He was neither idle nor unconscientious about his work; all that could be charged against him was leisureliness41 and a disinclination to begin; no urgency would quicken him, because he was seriously convinced that he would get through all right; as a rule, his conviction was justified42; he did get through all right, and even when he didn't nothing grave seemed to result. He loved to pick his teeth, even after a meal which was no meal. One of the graces of the table was a little wineglass containing toothpicks; he fashioned these instruments himself out of spent matches. He would calmly and reflectively pick his teeth while trains left stations without him and bargains escaped him. Violet, actuated by both duty and desire, would sit with him at meals until he finally nerved himself to the great decision of leaving the table and passing on to the next matter; but as she never picked her teeth before her public, which was himself, she grew openly restive43 sometimes. Not, however, this morning. No, this morning she would not even say: "I know you're never late, dear, but——"
When they did arrive in the shop Elsie, having had her breakfast and changed her apron, had already formally[Pg 132] opened the establishment and put the bookstand outside in front of the window. The bookstand, it should be mentioned, could now be moved, fully44 loaded, by one person with ease, for brilliant Violet had had the idea of taking the castors off the back legs of an old arm-chair and screwing them on to two of the legs of the bookstand, so that you had merely to raise one end of the thing and it slid about as smoothly45 as a perambulator. Do not despise such achievements of the human brain; such achievements constituted important events in the domestic history of the T. T. Riceyman firm; this one filled Violet with exultation46, Henry with pride in his wife, and Elsie with wondering admiration47; Elsie never moved the bookstand without glee in the ingenious effectiveness of the contrivance.
Violet, despite the chill, had removed her mantle. She could not possibly wear it in the shop, whatever the temperature, because to do so would be to admit to customers that the shop was cold. Nor would she give an order to light the stove; nor would she have the stove lighted when the master had gone forth48 on his ways; after the stifled49 scene at breakfast she must act delicately; moreover, she contemplated50 a further dangerous, desperate move which might be prejudiced if she availed herself of Henry's authorization51 to use her own judgment in regard to the stove. So she acquired warmth by helping52 Elsie with the cleaning and arranging of the shop for the day. The work was done with rapidity.... Customers might now enter without shaming the management. An age had passed since Elsie, preceding the dawn, arose to turn night into day. Looking at it none could suppose that the shop had ever been sheeted and asleep, or that a little milk-can was but recently squatting53 at the foot of its locked door. Mysterious magic of a daily ritual, unperceived by the priest and priestesses!
Mr. Earlforward was writing out the tail-end of a long bill in the office. He could not use his antique typewriter for bills, because it would not tabulate54 satisfactorily. He wore his new eyeglasses, memorial of Violet's sole victory over him. She had been forced to make[Pg 133] him a present of the eyeglasses, true; but he did wear them.
"My dear," he summoned her in a rather low voice, and she hastened to him, duster in hand. "Here's this bill for Mr. Bauersch; ￡148 18s." He blotted55 the bill with some old blotting-paper which spread more ink than it absorbed. "And here's the stamp. I haven't put it on in case there's any hitch56. I asked him if he'd mind paying in cash. Of course he's a very big dealer57, but you never know with these New Yorkers, and he's sailing to-morrow, and I've not done any business with him before. He said he wouldn't mind at all."
"I should hope not, indeed!" said Violet, who, nevertheless, was well aware that the master had asked for cash, not from any lack of confidence in the great Bauersch, but because he had a powerful preference for cash; the sight of a cheque did not rouse Henry's imagination.
"It's all ready," said Henry, pointing to two full packing-cases in front of his desk.
"But are we to nail them up, or what?"
"I haven't fastened them. He might want to run through them with the bill."
"Yes," agreed Violet, who nevertheless was well aware that the master had not fastened them because he had postponed58 fastening them till too late.
"He'll take them away in a car; probably have them re-packed with his other purchases. I hear he's bought over twenty thousand pounds' worth of stuff in London these last three weeks."
"Oh, my!"
"And you can put the money in your safe till I get back."
Henry stood up, took his hat from the top knob of the grandfather's clock, and buttoned his overcoat. He was going to a book auction59 at Chingby's historic sale-rooms in Fetter60 Lane. For years he had not attended auctions61, for he could never leave the shop for the best part of a day; he had to be content with short visits[Pg 134] to ragged62 sub-dealers in Whitechapel and Shoreditch, and with such offers of "parcels" as came to him uninvited. He always bought cheap or not at all; but he would sell cheap, with very rare exceptions. If he picked up a first edition worth a pound for two shillings he would sell it for five shillings. Thus he had acquired a valuable reputation for bargains. He was shrewd enough—shrewder than most—and ready to part with money in exchange for stock. Indeed, his tendency was to overstock his shop. Violet's instinct for tidiness and order had combated this tendency, whose dangers he candidly63 admitted. He had applied64 the brake to buying. No longer was the staircase embarrassed with heroic and perfect girls in paper dust-jackets! And save in the shop and the office all floors had been cleared of books. A few hundred volumes, in calculated and admired disorder65, still encumbered66 the ground-floor and the lower steps of the staircase, to the end explained by the master to his wife on the morrow of the honeymoon67. Stock was now getting a little low, and the master went to certain sales with his wife's full encouragement. He was an autocrat68, but where is the autocrat who can escape influence?
"Now do take care of yourself, darling," Violet murmured, almost in a whisper. "And if you go to that A.B.C. shop be sure to order some cold beef. What does it matter if you do miss a few lots?"
"I'll see."
They parted at the shop-door on a note of hard, cheerful indifference: note struck for the sake of the proprieties69 of a place of business—and utterly70 false. For Henry loved his wife to worry about him, and Violet's soul was heavy with apprehensions71. She saw herself helpless in a situation growing ever more formidable.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
replenished
|
|
| 补充( replenish的过去式和过去分词 )； 重新装满 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
advent
|
|
| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
costliness
|
|
| 昂贵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
5
tonic
|
|
| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
dread
|
|
| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
affected
|
|
| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
accusation
|
|
| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
impeachment
|
|
| n.弹劾；控告；怀疑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
wasteful
|
|
| adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
apron
|
|
| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
disquiet
|
|
| n.担心，焦虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
banter
|
|
| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
courteously
|
|
| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
judicial
|
|
| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
exasperation
|
|
| n.愤慨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
linen
|
|
| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
sodden
|
|
| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
panes
|
|
| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
trickled
|
|
| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
puckered
|
|
| v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
tempt
|
|
| vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
faculties
|
|
| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
sublimely
|
|
| 高尚地，卓越地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
mantle
|
|
| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
chilly
|
|
| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
outrageous
|
|
| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
indifference
|
|
| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
harry
|
|
| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
defiantly
|
|
| adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
rumble
|
|
| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
cowered
|
|
| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的过去式 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
bland
|
|
| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
soothing
|
|
| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
lessen
|
|
| vt.减少，减轻；缩小 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
dally
|
|
| v.荒废(时日)，调情 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
leisureliness
|
|
| n.悠然，从容 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
justified
|
|
| a.正当的，有理的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
restive
|
|
| adj.不安宁的，不安静的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
smoothly
|
|
| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
exultation
|
|
| n.狂喜，得意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
stifled
|
|
| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
contemplated
|
|
| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
authorization
|
|
| n.授权，委任状 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
helping
|
|
| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
squatting
|
|
| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
tabulate
|
|
| v.列表，排成表格式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
blotted
|
|
| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
hitch
|
|
| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
dealer
|
|
| n.商人，贩子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
postponed
|
|
| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
auction
|
|
| n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
fetter
|
|
| n./vt.脚镣，束缚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
auctions
|
|
| n.拍卖，拍卖方式( auction的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
ragged
|
|
| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
candidly
|
|
| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
applied
|
|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
disorder
|
|
| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
encumbered
|
|
| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
honeymoon
|
|
| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
autocrat
|
|
| n.独裁者；专横的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
proprieties
|
|
| n.礼仪，礼节；礼貌( propriety的名词复数 )；规矩；正当；合适 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
apprehensions
|
|
| 疑惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |