“How are you, Mrs. Holl? I am glad to see your sister-in-law is looking better. How are you, Bessy?”
“Oh! I am quite well, Miss Walker, and so happy now.”
[75]
Carry looked surprised.
“Happy!” she repeated. “Has your husband been pardoned?”
“No, miss; but haven't you heard?”
“No,” Carry said, “I have heard nothing. I have not been in for the last few days because I was afraid of being in the way. What has happened?”
“Why, Miss Carry,” Sarah Holl broke out, “you'd hardly believe it, but it's true; a gentleman, God bless him, has offered to pay Bessy's passage out to Australia to join William there, and in another year she'll be starting.”
“That is very kind of him, Mrs. Holl. Who is he?”
“His name is Maynard, him as our Evan is with.”
James was watching Carry's face, and saw a sudden rush of colour come up into it at the name. To tell the truth, Carry had thought a good deal of Frank Maynard since that solitary3 visit of his. His having saved her father's life had endowed him in her eyes with all the qualities of a hero of romance. She had thought over that interview very many times, and never without [76] blushing at the thoughts of the kiss she had given him. He had said he would come again, and very eagerly had she looked forward to his next visit, but as days and weeks had passed on without his coming, she felt both very resentful and hurt. Did he think her so forward that he would not come again? Or did he not think them worth another visit? Her only consolation4 had been that perhaps he was out of town all this time. And now this hope was dispelled5, and Carry blushed even deeper than before with pique6 and wounded pride.
“Is it the Mr. Maynard who lives in the Temple?” she asked, clinging to a last hope.
“Yes, Miss Carry. Do you know him?”
“A little,” Carry said, coldly; “he picked my father up one evening last winter when he had slipped down in Knightsbridge.”
The cripple lad noticed all this—the first sudden blush at his name, then the coldness of manner and the slighting way in which she spoke7 of a service which, he remembered well, she had described in such enthusiastic terms not long before. What could this mean? Carry afterwards was rather ashamed of her little fit of [77] petulance8, and listened with great interest to the account of Bessy Holl's hopes and plans for the future. Then, after a few words to James, she took her leave.
Very often afterwards James pondered the matter over in his mind, while his fingers almost mechanically worked at his wax flowers. “Why should Carry have blushed so deeply upon hearing Mr. Maynard's name suddenly mentioned, and why should she have spoken so coldly of him when she had formerly9 been so enthusiastic in his praises as the preserver of her father's life?” All this was utterly10 beyond James's comprehension. His knowledge of the world was completely confined to what he had learned from books, and he owned with a sigh that his books were of no assistance whatever to him in the present case. All that, after great thought, he arrived at satisfactorily, or rather unsatisfactorily, to himself was, that there was some mystery or other, although of what nature he could not even guess, between Carry Walker and Mr. Maynard.
Carry Walker was a spoilt child. She had managed her father from the day when she was able to climb upon his knee, and insist, with [78] much coaxing11 certainly and patting of his cheeks, and other pretty ways, but insisting nevertheless, upon having her own way. Very spoilt she had grown up, with no mother to control or check her, and with a father who allowed her to do in every respect as she pleased. Very spoilt had she afterwards been—for all the admiration12 and flattery she had received during the last two years was enough to have turned the heads of half-a-dozen girls. She had never had a mother's care or advice, or the healthy society of girls of her own age. The chances had been all against her, and she was little to be blamed in that she had grown up somewhat vain and flighty. Carry was indignant all that afternoon, and was angry with herself for being so. During that time she had no opportunity of speaking to her father, and it was not until she eat down to tea that she had an opportunity of doing so.
“I was in at the Holls' this afternoon, father.”
“And how is that unfortunate woman, my dear? Dear me, dear me, I cannot understand why men will neglect their business and go about talking about affairs which don't concern them. [79] I cannot see, Carry, upon my life I cannot, what good can possibly come of it. I told William Holl so. I cautioned him that he would find out his mistake too late. But there, I might as well have talked to the wind. These all but uneducated young fellows have an idea that the whole wisdom of the nation is centred in their heads. All the questions which have occupied and puzzled the wisest men of the nation, who have given their whole attention to them, these young fellows solve in the twinkling of an eye to their own perfect satisfaction. And now what has come of it? He has got transported, and upon my life I don't pity him at all. But there's his poor wife left behind to shift for herself. I am very sorry for her. But for the matter of that, she will do as well without him as with him. He has been a world of trouble to her, and I believe he has done no work at all for the last four or five months; talk, talk, talk, nothing but talk, my dear. It won't keep the pot boiling. Still it is sad for her, for I believe she loves him, idle scamp as he is. I wonder what will become of her?”
“That is just what I am going to tell you, [80] father, when you give me a chance,” Carry, who had been quietly continuing her tea, said. “I am only waiting till you give me an opportunity of slipping in a word. It seems that the gentleman, Evan Holl is with as a servant, has heard of William Holl's sentence to transportation, and of his leaving a wife behind him, and he has offered to pay Bessy's expenses out to join him. It seems that in a year or so he can get a ticket-of-leave, and then she can be with him.”
“That is very good of him, Carry.”
“It is Mr. Maynard, father, the gentleman who picked you up when you slipped down in Knightsbridge that night, you know.”
“You don't say so, Carry? How extraordinary. I remember now John Holl telling me his boy had gone out to service with a gentleman named Maynard, but I didn't know, it never struck me, as being the same. Dear me, what a kind-hearted young man, to be sure.”
Carry was silent a moment, and then said pettishly13, “Of course he is very kind-hearted, father; but I think he might have come again. I call it downright rude.”
Stephen Walker paused in his tea in utter [81] astonishment14. He had never given the matter a thought since the evening of Frank Maynard's visit, and this displeasure on the part of his daughter was to him singular and unreasonable15 in the extreme.
“Bless me, Carry,” he said, “you surprise me. Why should Mr. Maynard come again? He came over to see after me, and I was very glad that he did come that we might thank him; but why, in the name of goodness, should he come again?”
Carry had no particular reason to give, so she only said generally that she “thought he would come again.”
“Now, Carry, that is not at all like you. I call that unreasonable. Why, because Mr. Maynard saved my life, and afterwards took the trouble to come down to see me, he should be bound to come again to a place like this to talk to people like ourselves, I really can't conceive. No, Carry, for once in your life you are wrong, and I am sure you will own it.”
Carry did not own it, but tossed her head a little in dissent16 at the light in which her father put it.
[82]
“But, father, I am sure Mr. Maynard was pleased with you, very pleased; you chatted together like friends, upon travels and all sorts of things, and I am sure he did not look down upon you at all.”
“Not for the time being, Carry,” Stephen Walker said gravely; “Mr. Maynard was a gentleman and treated me under my own roof as a gentleman. He found that we had topics upon which we could discourse17 in common. He was no doubt surprised, and perhaps, as you say, pleased; but, Carry, there are thousands of men of his own class in life with whom he has not only that but a hundred other topics in common, and why should he come down here to talk to me? No, Carry, you are really not reasonable.”
Carry was silent. She could not explain that she was angry that Frank Maynard had not come down to see her, and was therefore obliged to let the matter drop. Still, upon subsequent reflection, Carry did not feel the less piqued18. She was hurt, and was angry with herself for being so.
If he did not care to see her, she certainly [83] did not care for seeing him. There were plenty of other gentlemen, the same as he was, who could appreciate her and were eager enough to talk with her. If Mr. Maynard came again she would take care to let him know that there were other people, just as good as he was, who were not too high and mighty19 to admire her. There was Mr. Bingham, for instance, he was always there, always kind and pleasant and cheerful. Evidently he cared for her. Here Carry's thoughts wandered off: “Yes, it would be very nice to be a lady, no more living in a little shop and selling newspapers and tobacco, but a real lady, with nice dresses and servants, and, perhaps, carriages, and above all a home for dear old father after all his troubles and cares. Oh! how nice that would be, how very happy!” And Carry's thoughts, which had been gloomy enough at the commencement of her reverie, ended by drawing a very bright picture indeed.
Carry's thoughts once fairly directed to this subject they returned again to it very frequently. By what her father had said she would have been a lady had he not been [84] unfortunate, and why should she not regain20 the position for herself and him? Indeed, she had felt strongly attracted by Fred Bingham. She liked the merry, good tempered, cheerful young fellow; he was so attentive21, so evidently fond of her. Indeed, it was only the strong influence which the one visit of Frank Maynard had exercised over her which had hitherto kept this feeling in check. Now, smarting with pique and resentment22 against Frank, the feeling returned with redoubled force. Why, she asked herself, should she throw away an honest love for a chimera23? Why should she not make herself happy with Fred Bingham? And so from this time she relaxed in her stiffness with him, and his visits to the tobacconist's became longer and more frequent, the conversations between them more interesting and confidential24, and there was less of badinage25 now, and more of blushing on her part.
Carry was a very simple, innocent girl. Brought up under her father's wing, she had absolutely no thought of evil. As soon as she really felt Fred Bingham loved her, she had little hesitation26 in giving her whole heart to [85] him, and in feeling very happy in so doing. And so time went on, and the gossips of the street began to remark how very often that fair young gentleman was in at Walker's shop, and the ill-natured ones soon began to shake their heads and to say, it was a pity Carry Walker had not a mother to look after her. Which, indeed, it was. She was ignorant and unsuspicious of harm as Una herself, only, unfortunately, she had no lion to protect her. A mother would have told her that even if she considered herself engaged to Fred Bingham, as in another two or three months she did, it would yet be much wiser not to meet him accidentally so often during the walks, which, at her father's wish, she was in the habit of taking daily. But Carry had no such adviser27, and never dreamt on the edge of what a precipice28 she was walking.
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1
alleviate
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| v.减轻，缓和，缓解(痛苦等) | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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4
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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dispelled
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| v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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6
pique
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| v.伤害…的自尊心，使生气 n.不满，生气 | |
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7
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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8
petulance
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| n.发脾气，生气，易怒，暴躁，性急 | |
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9
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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10
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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11
coaxing
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| v.哄，用好话劝说( coax的现在分词 )；巧言骗取；哄劝，劝诱；“锻炼”效应 | |
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12
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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13
pettishly
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14
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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15
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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16
dissent
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| n./v.不同意，持异议 | |
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17
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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18
piqued
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| v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心） | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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22
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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chimera
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| n.神话怪物；梦幻 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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badinage
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| n.开玩笑，打趣 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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