James Edward Makerstone Agar was not at the age of five the material from which the heroes of children's stories are evolved. He was not a good boy, nor a clean, nor particularly interesting. He was, however, honest—and that is déjà quelque chose. He was as far removed from the “misunderstood” type as could be wished; and he was quite happy.
Before his stepmother had laid aside the title and glory of a bride, he had, by his deadly honesty, made her understand that even a child of five requires what she could not give him—namely, logic1. Had she been clever enough to reason logically she might have undermined the little fellow's innate2 honesty of character, despite the fact that he lacked a child's chief incentive3 to learn from its mother, namely, the sympathy of heredity.
Gradually and steadily4 Mrs. Agar “gave him up,” to make use of her own expression. She was one of those women who either fear or despise that which they do not understand. She could scarcely fear Jem, so she persuaded herself that he was stupid and unattractive. At this time there came another influence to militate against any excess of love between Jem and his stepmother. It came to her, for he was ignorant of it. And this was the knowledge that before long the little heir's undisputed reign5 in the nursery would come to an end.
With a suburban6 horror of being a long distance from the chemist, Mrs. Agar protested that she could not possibly remain at Stagholme during the ensuing winter, and that her child must be born at Clapham. It was vain to argue or reason, and at last the Squire7 was forced to swallow this second humiliation8, which was quite beyond his wife's comprehension. He only dared to hint that all the Agars had seen the light at Stagholme since time immemorial; but feelings of this description found no answering note in her practical and essentially9 commonplace mind. So Mr. And Mrs. Agar emigrated to Clapham, leaving Jem behind them.
It happened that a few days after their arrival at the stately house overlooking the Common, a young officer called to see Mr. Hethbridge, who was at that time one of the Directors of the East India Company. Now it furthermore happened that this young soldier was he whom we last saw smoking a cheroot in the doorway10 of Seymour Michael's bungalow11 in India. As chance would have it, he called in the evening, and the estimable Mr. Hethbridge, warmed into an unusual hospitality by the fumes12 of his own port wine, pressed him to pass into the drawing-room and take a dish of tea with the ladies. The subaltern accepted, chiefly because it was the Director's self that pressed, and presently followed that short-winded gentleman into the drawing-room—thereby13 shaping lives yet uncreated—thereby unconsciously helping14 to work out a chain of events leading ultimately to an end which no man could foresee.
“Yes,” he said, in reply to Mrs. Agar's question, “I am just back from India.”
It happened that these two were left almost beyond earshot at the far end of the room. The old people, among whom was Mrs. Agar's husband, were settling down to a game of whist. Mrs. Agar was leaning forward with considerable interest. This was not a mere15 passing curiosity to hear further of a country and of an event which have not lost their glamour16 yet.
The very word “India” had stirred something up within her heart of the presence of which she had been unsuspicious. She was as one who, having a closed room in her life, and thinking the door thereof securely barred, suddenly finds herself within that room.
“Whereabouts in India were you?” she asked, with a sudden dryness of the lips.
“Oh—I was north of Delhi.”
“North of Delhi—oh, yes.”
She moistened her lips, with a strange, sidelong glance round the room, as if she were preparing to jump from a height.
“And—and I suppose you saw a great deal of the Mutiny?”
Even then—after many months, in a drawing-room in peaceful Clapham—the young man's eyes hardened.
“Yes, I saw a good deal,” he answered.
Mrs. Agar leant back in her chair, drawing her handkerchief through her fingers with jerky, unnatural17 movements.
“And did you lose many friends?” she asked.
“Yes,” answered the young fellow, “in one way and another.”
“How? What do you mean?” She had a way of leaning forward and listening when spoken to, which passed very well for sympathy.
“Well, a time like the Mutiny brings out all that is in a man, you know. And some men had less in them than one might have thought, while others—quiet-going fellows—seemed to wake up.”
“Yes,” she said; “I see.”
“One or two,” he continued, “betrayed themselves. They showed that there was that in them which no one had suspected. I lost one friend that way.”
“How?”
It was marvellous how the merest details of India interested this woman, who, like most of us, did not know herself. Moreover, she never learnt to do so thoroughly18, thereby being spared the horrid19 pain of knowing oneself too late.
“I made a mistake,” he explained. “I thought he was a gentleman and a brave man. I found that he was a coward and a cad.”
Something urged her to go on with her pointless questions—the same inevitable20 Fate which, according to the Italians, “stands at the end of everything,” and which had prompted Mr. Hethbridge to bring this stranger into the drawing-room.
“But how did you find it out?”
“Oh, I did not do it all at once. I first began by a mere trifle. It happened that this man was reported dead in the Gazette—I showed it to him myself.”
The young officer, who was not accustomed to ladies' society, and felt rather nervous at his own loquaciousness21, kept his eyes fixed22 on his boots, and did not notice the deathly pallor of Mrs. Agar's face, nor the convulsive clutch of her fingers on the velvet23 arm of the chair.
She turned right round, with a peculiar24 movement of the throat as if swallowing something, and made sure that the whist-players were interested in their game. In that position she heard the next words.
“He did not even take the trouble to write home to his friends. I thought it rather strange at the time, and told him so. Later on I heard the truth of it. I heard him tell some one else that he was engaged to a girl in England, and he thought it a very good way of getting out of the engagement.”
“You heard him tell that, with your own ears?”
“Yes; and he seemed to think it a good joke.”
“Yes, the cad!”
“He cannot have been a nice man,” she said, with that evenness of enunciation27 which betrays that the tongue is speaking without the direct aid of the mind.
The young officer rose with a glance towards the clock.
“No,” he said, “he was not. He did other things afterwards which made it quite impossible for a man with any self-respect whatever to look upon him as a friend.”
“Did he,” asked Mrs. Agar, “say anything about her personal appearance? Was it that?”
The subaltern looked puzzled. It was as well for Mrs. Agar that he was not a man of deep experience. Instead of being puzzled he might suddenly have seen clear.
“No—no,” he replied. “It was not that. It was merely a matter of expediency29, I believe.”
But, womanlike, Mrs. Agar did not believe him. She sat while he made his farewell speech over the whist-table, but as he went to the door she rose and followed him slowly.
In the hall she watched the servant help him on with his coat—her features twisted into a stereotype30 smile of polite leave-taking.
“By the way,” she said, with a sickening little laugh, “what was the man's name—your friend, whom you lost?”
“Michael—Seymour Michael.”
“Ah! Good-night—good-night.”
Then she turned and walked slowly upstairs.
We are apt to read indifferently of human ills, whether of the flesh or the soul. We are apt to overlook the fact that what we read may apply to us. Some of us even bear upon us the mark of hereditary31 disease and refuse to believe in it. Then suddenly comes a day when a pain makes itself felt—a dumb, little creeping pain, which may mean nothing. We sit down and, so to speak, feel ourselves. Before long all doubt goes. We have it. The world darkens, and behold32 we are in the ranks of those upon whom we looked a little while back with a semi-indifferent pity.
It was thus with Mrs. Agar. As some play with nature, so had she played with her own heart. She had heard of a consuming love which is near akin28 to hatred33. She had read of passion which is stronger than the strongest worldliness. She had smilingly doubted the existence of the broken heart pure and simple. And now she sat in her own room, numbly34, blindly feeling herself, like one to whom the first warning of an internal deadly disease has been manifested. She was conscious of something within herself which she could not get at, over which she had no control.
With quivering lips she sat and wondered what she could do to hurt this man. She did not only want to inflict35 bodily pain, but that other gnawing36 pain of the heart which she herself was now feeling for the first time. And through it all there ran the one thought that he must die. It was strange that hate should first teach her that love is a living, undeniable reality in the lives of all of us. She had never realised this before. Her bringing-up, her surroundings, all her teaching had been that money and a great house, and servants, and carriages were the good things of this life, the things to be sought after.
She had been conscious of a vague admiration37 for Seymour Michael, and that was the full extent of her knowledge of herself. This admiration took the worldly form of a conviction that he was destined38 one day to be a great man, and she had a strongly developed, common-minded desire to be a great lady.
There are some things in this life which to a moderate intelligence are quite unmistakable. Most of us, having left childhood behind, recognise at once an earthquake, and death. Love is as unmistakable when it really comes. And Anna Agar, having suddenly learnt to hate Seymour Michael, knew that she had loved him with that one all-absorbing love which comes but once to a woman.
She was not a deep-thinking or a subtle woman. Her actions were usually based upon impulse, and her one all-absorbing desire now was to see him, to speak to him face to face. In this indefinite longing39 there was probably a vulgar love of vituperation—the taint40 of her low-born ancestors.
She wanted to shout and shriek41 her hatred into the evil face of the man who had tricked her. She wanted to frighten him, to threaten, to lash42 him with her tongue. For she was conscious all the while of her own inability to harm him. Without defining the thought, her common-sense taught her one lamentable43, unjust fact; namely, that unless a woman is loved by the object of her wrath44 she can hardly make him suffer.
She rose at last, and, lighting45 the candles on the writing-table, she proceeded to write to Seymour Michael. Even in this epistle the natural cunning of her nature appeared.
“DEAR SEYMOUR “—she wrote on a sheet of paper bearing the address of the house in which she was staying, the roof under which Seymour Michael had first paid his careless tribute to her wealth—“I learnt by accident this evening that your regiment46 has returned to England. If you are in London, I hope you will make time to come and see me. Come to-morrow evening at four, if that time is convenient to you. ANNA.”
She purposely signed her Christian47 name only, purposely refrained from vouchsafing48 any personal news. She did not know how much or how little he might know.
Ringing for her maid, she sent the letter to the post, addressed to Seymour Michael, at the Service Club, of which she knew him to be a member. Then she went to bed to toss and turn all night. The doctors, good, portly Clapham practitioners49, had warned her in the usual way to spare herself all bodily fatigue50 and mental worry for the sake of the little one. It is so easy to urge each other to spare all mental worry, and so eminently51 useful.
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1
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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bungalow
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| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
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fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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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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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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loquaciousness
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| n.loquacious（多话的）的变形 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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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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shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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enunciation
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| n.清晰的发音；表明，宣言；口齿 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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expediency
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| n.适宜；方便；合算；利己 | |
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stereotype
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| n.固定的形象，陈规，老套，旧框框 | |
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31
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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32
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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numbly
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| adv.失去知觉，麻木 | |
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inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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38
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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41
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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42
lash
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| v.系牢；鞭打；猛烈抨击；n.鞭打；眼睫毛 | |
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43
lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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44
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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45
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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47
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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48
vouchsafing
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| v.给予，赐予( vouchsafe的现在分词 )；允诺 | |
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49
practitioners
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| n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师） | |
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50
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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51
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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