[133]
Stephen Walker was smoking his pipe quietly, and was thinking sadly to himself how greatly Carry had changed in the three months, when he was startled by a sharp cry of pain from her, and looking up saw the paper fall from her hands. She had risen to her feet, her eyes stared wildly, and her face was deadly pale. For a moment she stood immoveable, then she tottered5, and with a low gasping6 cry sank back upon the seat, and Stephen Walker was just in time to support her as she fainted. Terribly alarmed at this sudden attack, her father laid her upon the little sofa, and hurried to fetch water to sprinkle her forehead, but it was a long time before there were any signs of returning animation7. Then she opened her eyes and looked round wildly, then with a shuddering8 sigh closed them again, and remained for some time without speaking. At last, in answer to her father's earnest entreaties9 to speak, she rose into a sitting position, and said, faintly,—
“I am better again now, father; I will go up to bed.”
She was so weak, however, that she had to accept her father's assistance, and having seen [134] her to her door, the old man returned sadly downstairs.
“Poor child, poor child!” he said to himself, as he sat down again and mechanically refilled his pipe, “what a change! She is evidently unhappy, evidently begins to doubt him already. I am afraid he is a rascal10; if so, the sooner she knows it the better. What ought I to do?” and he thought deeply for a while. “Yes, that is the only plan; next time he comes I will follow him out and talk to him myself. I will tell him that I can see that he is here too often for Carry's peace of mind. I will ask him as a man to keep away altogether if he is only playing with my child's affections. If he repeats to me what he has told her, I will ask him at any rate to stay away until he is in a position to make her his wife. In the meantime, if I could but get her away from him, the change would strengthen her. Why should I not?” he went on more briskly. [135] “I have two or three hundred pounds at the bank, why should I not put some one in charge of the shop and go away for a month to the seaside? It would be the very thing for her. Yes, yes, if I had Carry all to myself at the seaside, I should soon get her round again. I wish I had thought of it before. I will see about getting some one to-morrow. I will take Carry to a doctor, too; he shall give her some tonics11.”
Stephen Walker went up to bed and felt quite relieved at the thoughts of his plans for Carry's benefit. He woke up, however, in the night with a vague idea that some one had been kissing and crying over him. As he fairly roused himself and sat up, he fancied he heard his door close softly, but was not sure that it was not imagination. He spoke12, and there was no answer, and after a thought of the pleasant surprise he had in store for Carry in the morning, he fell asleep again. In the morning when Stephen Walker came downstairs he found that, contrary to custom, he was the first up.
“Poor child,” he said to himself, “she is tired, I dare say, after fainting last night. Well, a good long sleep will do her good,” and so Stephen Walker bustled13 about, folded the newspapers, and served the customers, sending round Tom Holl before he started on his rounds, to ask his mother to come in for half-an-hour, if she [136] could spare time. Mrs. Holl soon came round, laid and lit the fire, and prepared breakfast. It was by this time half-past nine, and the regular customers were all served.
“Now, Mrs. Holl, I will go up and call Carry. How astonished she will be when I tell her its half-past nine, and breakfast's ready!”
Stephen Walker was away two or three minutes and then returned, looking white and scared. He sat down in a chair, trembling in every limb.
“What is the matter, Mr. Walker?”
“I don't know, Mrs. Holl; I have knocked, and knocked, and I cannot make her hear.”
“I dare say she's sleeping sound,” Mrs. Holl said; “she's not been looking well of late; shall I go up and wake her?”
Stephen Walker made a gesture of assent14, and Mrs. Holl went upstairs to Carry's room. She knocked at first gently, and then more loudly. There was no answer. Mrs. Holl was not a nervous woman, but she felt frightened—she did not know of what. The fear of Stephen Walker had infected her, and this strange silence made her as timid as he had been. She tried the handle to see if the door was locked. It was [137] not; the door yielded to her touch, but it was with a nervous trembling that Mrs. Holl pushed the door open, and entered. What she had expected to see—what she was afraid of—she knew not, but no sight could have affected15 her so much, not even the sight of the girl dead in her bed, as did that deserted16 room, that unused bed, that letter lying upon the table. Mrs. Holl saw the truth at once, and as she thought of Carry, thought of the old man downstairs, she sat down, and began to cry. Presently she heard a step on the stairs. What should she say? how should she break it to him? She hurried out and met him outside the door.
“Don't go in, don't go in; come downstairs, and I will tell you all about it.”
“Is she——?”
He did not finish the question—indeed he had scarcely uttered the words, but Mrs. Holl guessed them by the movement of his lips.
“No, she's not dead; she's not, indeed. Please, go down——”
But Stephen Walker pushed past her, and stood in the empty room. A low cry broke from him, then his eye caught the letter on the table; [138] it was addressed to himself. He could not stand to read it; he sank down in a chair. He opened the letter with trembling hands, but the trembling ceased, and his figure seemed to stiffen17 into stone as he read on—
“Father, father, what can I say to you—how can I write it? He has married another; I saw it in the paper this evening; yet he promised, promised over and over again to marry me. Only this morning I had a letter from him saying he would marry me in three weeks, and when he was writing it he must have been married already. I leave his letter that you may see that I spoke truly when I said he promised to marry me, and oh, father, I believed him so; I thought him true and honourable18, and oh, father, forgive me, forgive me, for I have disgraced you. I cannot live, father, I cannot live with this shame. When you receive this, Carry and her sins will be over. Oh, father, forgive me. I know you will, and then God will forgive, too. I have suffered so much, surely He will have pity on me. Father, do not think of me as I have been for the last month. Try and think that I died young; think of me as the little Carry who loved you so, so [139] much, and never remember the miserable19 girl who has brought shame upon herself and you.”
Mrs. Holl was frightened at the ghastly pallor and the set rigid20 expression which grew upon the old man's face as he read on. There he sat still and immovable. When he had finished, his lips were livid, and his eyes fixed.
“Don't take on so, now don't, there's a good creature,” Mrs. Holl said, soothingly21; “she will come back again safe enough; don't take on so.”
But Mrs. Holl's words were addressed to deaf ears, and seeing that he paid no attention to her, she came close to him and touched him. Then a sharp contraction22 passed over his face, and in another moment he lay on the ground in a violent fit. Mrs. Holl was a strong woman, and accustomed to hard work, but it needed all her strength to hold the old man during the first paroxysm of the attack. She was unwilling23 to call for assistance, as she wished to hide what had happened from the neighbours until, at any rate, she knew what the father might determine upon doing. When she saw that the paroxysm was over, the kind hearted woman, wishing to spare him the sight of his daughter's empty room, took [140] the still insensible man up in her strong arms and carried him down to the parlour. Presently he opened his eyes, then putting his hand over his face, remained immovable.
Mrs. Holl hesitated.
“I wouldn't do that, Mr. Walker, not if I were you; it would tell all the neighbours something wrong had taken place. If you bear up, and give out she's gone away on a visit, no one will be any the wiser, when she comes back, which she's sure to do sooner or later; and you may be sure I would bite my tongue out before I would speak a word. You must not be hard on her, Mr. Walker. Poor young thing, she has had no mother to advise her right, and young girls, if they ain't looked after, are as certain to go wrong as a horse is to go to water. You won't be hard on her now, Mr. Walker; you'll forgive her when she comes back?” Mrs. Holl said pleadingly.
“She will never come back,” the old man said hoarsely25, “never. He has married some one [141] else, and she could not bear the disgrace. She is dead now.”
Mrs. Holl sat down in sudden horror. She had not for a moment suspected this. She had only thought that Carry had eloped with some one, and that the letter was to tell her father of it and to beg for forgiveness. This was too dreadful, and as Mrs. Holl thought of the girl she had known so long and seen so lately, now lying dead, or perhaps being swept along by the cold river, she put her apron26 over her head and cried unrestrainedly. Stephen Walker shed no tears. He sat immovable, crushed and hopeless. When Mrs. Holl recovered, she went outside and put up the shutters, and then closing the door, went back into the parlour.
“Don't take on so, there's a dearie; let me pour you out a little tea. You must not give way. If it is true, poor child, she's happy now. Whatever has happened, she was as good a girl as ever lived, and if she has sinned, she has suffered.” The old man did not seem to hear that he was spoken to; and Mrs. Holl, feeling powerless before this great grief, prepared to leave him to himself. First, however, she reached down a Bible from the shelf, and placed it before him. Then she said, “I will come in [142] again this afternoon and see if I can do anything for you. Keep your heart up, there's a dearie; do try and think she was always a good girl, and that she is happy now, and please try and read the good book; I've heard them say in church that it binds27 up the bleeding heart.”
As Mrs. Holl turned to leave, Mr. Walker roused himself a little, “Thank you,” he said, faintly; “Thank you, you are very good; will you send the Policeman, the one I have met at your house, here? I want him to search—,” and here he stopped. But Mrs. Holl understood him; he wanted him to search for the body, and with a nod of assent, for she could not speak, she turned and left him to his great sorrow.
Mrs. Holl hurried home, and then sitting down before the fire, and covering her head again with her apron, she gave way to a great fit of crying, to the astonishment28 and alarm of the cripple lad who was the only inmate29 of the house.
“What is the matter, mother! what is the matter? Is anything wrong with father or the children?”
Mrs. Holl shook her head, but continued to [143] cry, silently rocking herself backwards30 and forwards in her chair.
The cripple hastily wheeled his box to her side. “What is it, mother? you frighten me.”
“Yes mother, yes; what of her?” the cripple panted out.
The cripple gave a cry as of sharp pain. His mother looked round, and read his secret in his face.
“Oh, my poor boy, my poor boy!” she cried, kneeling by his box, and putting her arm round him. “To think of this. But it could not have been, James; she never could have been for you. Don't take on, my poor lad.”
“Oh mother, I never thought it!” he cried; “I never thought it; but I loved her so, loved her with all my life, and to think—oh Carry, Carry!” he broke out wildly; “oh that I who loved you so, was helpless to protect you! oh that I must sit here and be able to do nothing to avenge33 you—to think that you, so good, so kind, [144] so gentle, are gone—oh mother, mother! I shall go mad!”
In vain Mrs. Holl endeavoured to calm the lad; his wild excitement, his grief, and his sense of helplessness, turned his brain; hour after hour he raved34, and before night was in a state of raging fever. Mrs. Holl sent a neighbour off for a doctor, who ordered his hair to be cut off, and ice to be placed on his temples, but for the next few days his life was despaired of, and John was obliged to stay at home to assist Sarah with the delirious35 lad, and enable her to slip away for half an hour three times a day to the broken-hearted old man in New Street.
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1
registrar
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| n.记录员，登记员；(大学的)注册主任 | |
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2
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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3
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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4
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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5
tottered
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| v.走得或动得不稳( totter的过去式和过去分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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6
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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7
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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8
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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9
entreaties
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| n.恳求，乞求( entreaty的名词复数 ) | |
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10
rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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11
tonics
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| n.滋补品( tonic的名词复数 )；主音；奎宁水；浊音 | |
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12
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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13
bustled
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| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
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14
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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15
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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16
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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17
stiffen
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| v.(使)硬，(使)变挺，(使)变僵硬 | |
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18
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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19
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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20
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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21
soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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22
contraction
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| n.缩略词，缩写式，害病 | |
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23
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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25
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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26
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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27
binds
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| v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 )；装订；捆绑；（用长布条）缠绕 | |
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28
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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29
inmate
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| n.被收容者；(房屋等的)居住人；住院人 | |
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30
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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31
sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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32
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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33
avenge
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| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
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34
raved
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| v.胡言乱语( rave的过去式和过去分词 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说 | |
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35
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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