Ere folly2 hath much oppressed thee,
Far from acquaintance kest thee
Where country may digest thee...
Thank God that so hath blessed thee,
And sit down, Robin3, and rest thee.
— THOMAS TUSSER.
It came without warning, at the very hour his hand was outstretched to crumple4 the Holz and Gunsberg Combine. The New York doctors called it overwork, and he lay in a darkened room, one ankle crossed above the other, tongue pressed into palate, wondering whether the next brain-surge of prickly fires would drive his soul from all anchorages. At last they gave judgment5. With care he might in two years return to the arena6, but for the present he must go across the water and do no work whatever. He accepted the terms. It was capitulation; but the Combine that had shivered beneath his knife gave him all the honours of war: Gunsberg himself, full of condolences, came to the steamer and filled the Chapins’ suite7 of cabins with overwhelming flower-works.
“Smilax,” said George Chapin when he saw them. “Fitz is right. I’m dead; only I don’t see why he left out the ‘In Memoriam’ on the ribbons!”
“Nonsense!” his wife answered, and poured him his tincture. “You’ll be back before you can think.”
He looked at himself in the mirror, surprised that his face had not been branded by the hells of the past three months. The noise of the decks worried him, and he lay down, his tongue only a little pressed against his palate.
An hour later he said: “Sophie, I feel sorry about taking you away from everything like this. I— I suppose we’re the two loneliest people on God’s earth to-night.”
Said Sophie his wife, and kissed him: “Isn’t it something to you that we’re going together?”
They drifted about Europe for months — sometimes alone, sometimes with chance met gipsies of their own land. From the North Cape9 to the Blue Grotto10 at Capri they wandered, because the next steamer headed that way, or because some one had set them on the road. The doctors had warned Sophie that Chapin was not to take interest even in other men’s interests; but a familiar sensation at the back of the neck after one hour’s keen talk with a Nauheimed railway magnate saved her any trouble. He nearly wept.
“And I’m over thirty,” he cried. “With all I meant to do!”
“Let’s call it a honeymoon11,” said Sophie. “D’ you know, in all the six years we’ve been married, you’ve never told me what you meant to do with your life?”
“With my life? What’s the use? It’s finished now.” Sophie looked up quickly from the Bay of Naples. “As far as my business goes, I shall have to live on my rents like that architect at San Moritz.”
“You’ll get better if you don’t worry; and even if it rakes time, there are worse things than — How much have you?”
“Between four and five million. But it isn’t the money. You know it isn’t. It’s the principle. How could you respect me? You never did, the first year after we married, till I went to work like the others. Our tradition and upbringing are against it. We can’t accept those ideals.”
“Well, I suppose I married you for some sort of ideal,” she answered, and they returned to their forty-third hotel.
In England they missed the alien tongues of Continental12 streets that reminded them of their own polyglot13 cities. In England all men spoke14 one tongue, speciously15 like American to the ear, but on cross-examination unintelligible16.
“Ah, but you have not seen England,” said a lady with iron-grey hair. They had met her in Vienna, Bayreuth, and Florence, and were grateful to find her again at Claridge’s, for she commanded situations, and knew where prescriptions17 are most carefully made up. “You ought to take an interest in the home of our ancestors as I do.”
“I’ve tried for a week, Mrs. Shonts,” said Sophie, “but I never get any further than tipping German waiters.”
“These men are not the true type,” Mrs. Shouts went on. “I know where you should go.”
Chapin pricked18 up his ears, anxious to run anywhere from the streets on which quick men, something of his kidney, did the business denied to him.
“We hear and we obey, Mrs. Shonts,” said Sophie, feeling his unrest as he drank the loathed19 British tea.
Mrs. Shonts smiled, and took them in hand. She wrote widely and telegraphed far on their behalf till, armed with her letter of introduction, she drove them into that wilderness20 which is reached from an ash-barrel of a station called Charing21 Cross. They were to go to Rockett’s — the farm of one Cloke, in the southern counties — where, she assured them, they would meet the genuine England of folklore23 and song.
Rocketts they found after some hours, four miles from a station, and, so far as they could, judge in the bumpy24 darkness, twice as many from a road. Trees, kine, and the outlines of barns showed shadowy about them when they alighted, and Mr. and Mrs. Cloke, at the open door of a deep stone-floored kitchen, made them shyly welcome. They lay in an attic25 beneath a wavy26 whitewashed27 ceiling, and, because it rained, a wood fire was made in an iron basket on a brick hearth28, and they fell asleep to the chirping29 of mice and the whimper of flames.
When they woke it was a fair day, full of the noises, of birds, the smell of box lavender, and fried bacon, mixed with an elemental smell they had never met before.
“This,” said Sophie, nearly pushing out the thin casement32 in an attempt to see round the corner, “is — what did the hack-cabman say to the railway porter about my trunk —‘quite on the top?’”
“No; ‘a little bit of all right.’ I feel farther away from anywhere than I’ve ever felt in my life. We must find out where the telegraph office is.”
“Who cares?” said Sophie, wandering about, hairbrush in hand, to admire the illustrated33 weekly pictures pasted on door and cupboard.
But there was no rest for the alien soul till he had made sure of the telegraph office. He asked the Clokes’ daughter, laying breakfast, while Sophie plunged34 her face in the lavender bush outside the low window.
“Go to the stile a-top o’ the Barn field,” said Mary, “and look across Pardons to the next spire35. It’s directly under. You can’t miss it — not if you keep to the footpath36. My sister’s the telegraphist there. But you’re in the three-mile radius37, sir. The boy delivers telegrams directly to this door from Pardons village.”
“One has to take a good deal on trust in this country,” he murmured.
Sophie looked at the close turf, scarred only with last night’s wheels, at two ruts which wound round a rickyard, and at the circle of still orchard38 about the half-timbered house.
“What’s the matter with it?” she said. “Telegrams delivered to the Vale of Avalon, of course,” and she beckoned39 in an earnest-eyed hound of engaging manners and no engagements, who answered, at times, to the name of Rambler. He led them, after breakfast, to the rise behind the house where the stile stood against the skyline, and, “I wonder what we shall find now,” said Sophie, frankly40 prancing41 with joy on the grass.
It was a slope of gap-hedged fields possessed42 to their centres by clumps43 of brambles. Gates were not, and the rabbit-mined, cattle-rubbed posts leaned out and in. A narrow path doubled among the bushes, scores of white tails twinkled before the racing44 hound, and a hawk45 rose, whistling shrilly46.
“No roads, no nothing!” said Sophie, her short skirt hooked by briers. “I thought all England was a garden. There’s your spire, George, across the valley. How curious!”
They walked toward it through an all abandoned land. Here they found the ghost of a patch of lucerne that had refused to die: there a harsh fallow surrendered to yard-high thistles; and here a breadth of rampant47 kelk feigning48 to be lawful49 crop. In the ungrazed pastures swaths of dead stuff caught their feet, and the ground beneath glistened50 with sweat. At the bottom of the valley a little brook51 had undermined its footbridge, and frothed in the wreckage53. But there stood great woods on the slopes beyond — old, tall, and brilliant, like unfaded tapestries54 against the walls of a ruined house.
“All this within a hundred miles of London,” he said. “Looks as if it had had nervous prostration55, too.” The footpath turned the shoulder of a slope, through a thicket56 of rank rhododendrons, and crossed what had once been a carriage drive, which ended in the shadow of two gigantic holm-oaks.
“A house!” said Sophie, in a whisper. “A Colonial house!”
Behind the blue-green of the twin trees rose a dark-bluish brick Georgian pile, with a shell-shaped fan-light over its pillared door. The hound had gone off on his own foolish quests. Except for some stir it the branches and the flight of four startled magpies57; there was neither life nor sound about the square house, but it looked out of its long windows most friendlily.
“Cha-armed to meet you, I’m sure,” said Sophie, and curtsied to the ground. “George, this is history I can understand. We began here.” She curtsied again.
The June sunshine twinkled on all the lights. It was as though an old lady, wise in three generations’ experience, but for the present sitting out, bent58 to listen to her flushed and eager grandchild.
“I must look!” Sophie tiptoed to a window, and shaded her eyes with her hand. “Oh, this room’s half-full of cotton-bales — wool, I suppose! But I can see a bit of the mantelpiece. George, do come! Isn’t that some one?”
She fell back behind her husband. The front door opened slowly, to show the hound, his nose white with milk, in charge of an ancient of days clad in a blue linen59 ephod curiously60 gathered on breast and shoulders.
“Certainly,” said George, half aloud. “Father Time himself. This is where he lives, Sophie.”
“We came,” said Sophie weakly. “Can we see the house? I’m afraid that’s our dog.”
“No, ’tis Rambler,” said the old man. “He’s been, at my swill-pail again. Staying at Rocketts, be ye? Come in. Ah! you runagate!”
The hound broke from him, and he tottered61 after him down the drive. They entered the hall — just such a high light hall as such a house should own. A slim-balustered staircase, wide and shallow and once creamy-white, climbed out of it under a long oval window. On either side delicately moulded doors gave on to wool-lumbered rooms, whose sea-green mantelpieces were adorned63 with nymphs, scrolls64, and Cupids in low relief.
“What’s the firm that makes these things?” cried Sophie, enraptured65. “Oh, I forgot! These must be the originals. Adams, is it? I never dreamed of anything like that steel-cut fender. Does he mean us to go everywhere?”
“He’s catching66 the dog,” said George, looking out. “We don’t count.”
They explored the first or ground floor, delighted as children playing burglars.
“This is like all England,” she said at last. “Wonderful, but no explanation. You’re expected to know it beforehand. Now, let’s try upstairs.”
The stairs never creaked beneath their feet. From the broad landing they entered a long, green-panelled room lighted by three full-length windows, which overlooked the forlorn wreck52 of a terraced garden, and wooded slopes beyond.
“The drawing-room, of course.” Sophie swam up and down it. “That mantelpiece — Orpheus and Eurydice — is the best of them all. Isn’t it marvellous? Why, the room seems furnished with nothing in it! How’s that, George?”
“It’s the proportions. I’ve noticed it.”
“I saw a Heppelwhite couch once”— Sophie laid her finger to her flushed cheek and considered. “With, two of them — one on each side — you wouldn’t need anything else. Except — there must be one perfect mirror over that mantelpiece.”
“Look at that view. It’s a framed Constable,” her husband cried.
“No; it’s a Morland — a parody67 of a Morland. But about that couch, George. Don’t you think Empire might be better than Heppelwhite? Dull gold against that pale green? It’s a pity they don’t make spinets nowadays.”
“I believe you can get them. Look at that oak wood behind the pines.”
“‘While you sat and played toccatas stately, at the clavichord,”’ Sophie hummed, and, head on one; side, nodded to where the perfect mirror should hang:
Then they found bedrooms with dressing-rooms and powdering-closets, and steps leading up and down — boxes of rooms, round, square, and octagonal, with enriched ceilings and chased door-locks.
“Now about servants. Oh!” She had darted68 up the last stairs to the chequered darkness of the top floor, where loose tiles lay among broken laths, and the walls were scrawled69 with names, sentiments, and hop70 records. “They’ve been keeping pigeons here,” she cried.
“And you could drive a buggy through the roof anywhere,” said George.
“That’s what I say,” the old man cried below them on the stairs. “Not a dry place for my pigeons at all.”
“But why was it allowed to get like this?” said Sophie.
“Tis with housen as teeth,” he replied. “Let ’em go too far, and there’s nothing to be done. Time was they was minded to sell her, but none would buy. She was too far away along from any place. Time was they’d ha’ lived here theyselves, but they took and died.”
“Here?” Sophie moved beneath the light of a hole in the roof.
“Nah — none dies here excep’ falling off ricks and such. In London they died.” He plucked a lock of wool from his blue smock. “They was no staple71 — neither the Elphicks nor the Moones. Shart and brittle72 all of ’em. Dead they be seventeen year, for I’ve been here caretakin’ twenty-five.”
“Who does all the wool belong to downstairs?” George asked.
“To the estate. I’ll show you the back parts if ye like. You’re from America, ain’t ye? I’ve had a son there once myself.” They followed him down the main stairway. He paused at the turn and swept one hand toward the wall. “Plenty room, here for your coffin73 to come down. Seven foot and three men at each end wouldn’t brish the paint. If I die in my bed they’ll ‘ave to up-end me like a milk-can. ’Tis all luck, dye see?”
He led them on and on, through a maze74 of back kitchens, dairies, larders75, and sculleries, that melted along covered ways into a farm-house, visibly older than the main building, which again rambled76 out among barns, byres, pig-pens, stalls and stables to the dead fields behind.
“Somehow,” said Sophie, sitting exhausted77 on an ancient well-curb —“somehow one wouldn’t insult these lovely old things by filling them with hay.”
George looked at long stone walls upholding reaches of silvery-oak weather-boarding; buttresses78 of mixed flint and bricks; outside stairs, stone upon arched stone; curves of thatch79 where grass sprouted80; roundels of house-leeked tiles, and a huge paved yard populated by two cows and the repentant81 Rambler. He had not thought of himself or of the telegraph office for two and a half hours.
“But why,” said Sophie, as they went back through the crater82 of stricken fields,—“why is one expected to know everything in England? Why do they never tell?”
“You mean about the Elphicks and the Moones?” he answered.
“Yes — and the lawyers and the estate. Who are they? I wonder whether those painted floors in the green room were real oak. Don’t you like us exploring things together — better than Pompeii?”
George turned once more to look at the view. “Eight hundred acres go with the house — the old man told me. Five farms altogether. Rocketts is one of ’em.”
“I like Mrs. Cloke. But what is the old house called?”
George laughed. “That’s one of the things you’re expected to know. He never told me.”
The Clokes were more communicative. That evening and thereafter for a week they gave the Chapins the official history, as one gives it to lodgers83, of Friars Pardon the house and its five farms. But Sophie asked so many questions, and George was so humanly interested, that, as confidence in the strangers grew, they launched, with observed and acquired detail, into the lives and deaths and doings of the Elphicks and the Moones and their collaterals85, the Haylings and the Torrells. It was a tale told serially86 by Cloke in the barn, or his wife in the dairy, the last chapters reserved for the kitchen o’ nights by the big fire, when the two had been half the day exploring about the house, where old Iggulden, of the blue smock, cackled and chuckled87 to see them. The motives88 that swayed the characters were beyond their comprehension; the fates that shifted them were gods they had never met; the sidelights Mrs. Cloke threw on act and incident were more amazing than anything in the record. Therefore the Chapins listened delightedly, and blessed Mrs. Shonts.
“But why — why — why — did So-and-so do so-and-so?” Sophie would demand from her seat by the pothook; and Mrs. Cloke would answer, smoothing her knees, “For the sake of the place.”
“I give it up,” said George one night in their own room. “People don’t seem to matter in this country compared to the places they live in. The way she tells it, Friars Pardon was a sort of Moloch.”
“Poor old thing!” They had been walking round the farms as usual before tea. “No wonder they loved it. Think of the sacrifices they made for it. Jane Elphick married the younger Torrell to keep it in the family. The octagonal room with the moulded ceiling next to the big bedroom was hers. Now what did he tell you while he was feeding the pigs?” said Sophie.
“About the Torrell cousins and the uncle who died in Java. They lived at Burnt House — behind High Pardons, where that brook is all blocked up.”
“No; Burnt House is under High Pardons Wood, before you come to Gale89 Anstey,” Sophie corrected.
“Well, old man Cloke said —”
Sophie threw open the door and called down into the kitchen, where the Clokes were covering the fire “Mrs. Cloke, isn’t Burnt House under High Pardons?”
“Yes, my dear, of course,” the soft voice answered absently. A cough. “I beg your pardon, Madam. What was it you said?”
“Never mind. I prefer it the other way,” Sophie laughed, and George re-told the missing chapter as she sat on the bed.
“Here today an’ gone tomorrow,” said Cloke warningly. “They’ve paid their first month, but we’ve only that Mrs. Shonts’s letter for guarantee.”
“None she sent never cheated us yet. It slipped out before I thought. She’s a most humane90 young lady. They’ll be going away in a little. An’ you’ve talked a lot too, Alfred.”
“Yes, but the Elphicks are all dead. No one can bring my loose talking home to me. But why do they stay on and stay on so?”
In due time George and Sophie asked each other that question, and put it aside. They argued that the climate — a pearly blend, unlike the hot and cold ferocities of their native land — suited them, as the thick stillness of the nights certainly suited George. He was saved even the sight of a metalled road, which, as presumably leading to business, wakes desire in a man; and the telegraph office at the village of Friars Pardon, where they sold picture post-cards and pegtops, was two walking miles across the fields and woods.
For all that touched his past among his fellows, or their remembrance of him, he might have been in another planet; and Sophie, whose life had been very largely spent among husbandless wives of lofty ideals, had no wish to leave this present of God. The unhurried meals, the foreknowledge of deliciously empty hours to follow, the breadths of soft sky under which they walked together and reckoned time only by their hunger or thirst; the good grass beneath their feet that cheated the miles; their discoveries, always together, amid the farms — Griffons, Rocketts, Burnt House, Gale Anstey, and the Home Farm, where Iggulden of the blue smock-frock would waylay91 them, and they would ransack92 the old house once more; the long wet afternoons when, they tucked up their feet on the bedroom’s deep window-sill over against the apple-trees, and talked together as never till then had they found time to talk — these things contented93 her soul, and her body throve.
“Have you realized,” she asked one morning, “that we’ve been here absolutely alone for the last thirty-four days?”
“Have you counted them?” he asked.
“Did you like them?” she replied.
“I must have. I didn’t think about them. Yes, I have. Six months ago I should have fretted94 myself sick. Remember at Cairo? I’ve only had two or three bad times. Am I getting better, or is it senile decay?”
“Climate, all climate.” Sophie swung her new-bought English boots, as she sat on the stile overlooking Friars Pardon, behind the Clokes’s barn.
“One must take hold of things though,” he said, “if it’s only to keep one’s hand in.” His eyes did not flicker95 now as they swept the empty fields. “Mustn’t one?”
“Lay out a Morristown links over Gale Anstey. I dare say you could hire it.”
“No, I’m not as English as that — nor as Morristown. Cloke says all the farms here could be made to pay.”
“Well, I’m Anastasia in the ‘Treasure of Franchard.’ I’m content to be alive and purr. There’s no hurry.”
“No.” He smiled. “All the same, I’m going to see after my mail.”
“You promised you wouldn’t have any.”
“There’s some business coming through that’s amusing me. Honest. It doesn’t get on my nerves at all.”
“Want a secretary?”
“No, thanks, old thing! Isn’t that quite English?”
“Too English! Go away.” But none the less in broad daylight she returned the kiss. “I’m off to Pardons. I haven’t been to the house for nearly a week.”
“How’ve you decided96 to furnish Jane Elphick’s bedroom?” he laughed, for it had come to be a permanent Castle in Spain between them.
“Black Chinese furniture and yellow silk brocade,” she answered, and ran downhill. She scattered97 a few cows at a gap with a flourish of a ground-ash that Iggulden had cut for her a week ago, and singing as she passed under the holmoaks, sought the farm-house at the back of Friars Pardon. The old man was not to be found, and she knocked at his half-opened door, for she needed him to fill her idle forenoon. A blue-eyed sheep-dog, a new friend, and Rambler’s old enemy, crawled out and besought98 her to enter.
Iggulden sat in his chair by the fire, a thistle-spud between his knees, his head drooped99. Though she had never seen death before, her heart, that missed a beat, told her that he was dead. She did not speak or cry, but stood outside the door, and the dog licked her hand. When he threw up his nose, she heard herself saying: “Don’t howl! Please don’t begin to howl, Scottie, or I shall run away!”
She held her ground while the shadows in the rickyard moved toward noon; sat after a while on the steps by the door, her arms round the dog’s neck, waiting till some one should come. She watched the smokeless chimneys of Friars Pardon slash100 its roofs with shadow, and the smoke of Iggulden’s last lighted fire gradually thin and cease. Against her will she fell to wondering how many Moones, Elphicks, and Torrells had been swung round the turn of the broad Mall stairs. Then she remembered the old man’s talk of being “up-ended like a milk-can,” and buried her face on Scottie’s neck. At last a horse’s feet clinked upon flags, rustled101 in the old grey straw of the rickyard, and she found herself facing the vicar — a figure she had seen at church declaiming impossibilities (Sophie was a Unitarian) in an unnatural102 voice.
“He’s dead,” she said, without preface.
“Old Iggulden? I was coming for a talk with him.” The vicar passed in uncovered. “Ah!” she heard him say. “Heart-failure! How long have you been here?”
“Since a quarter to eleven.” She looked at her watch earnestly and saw that her hand did not shake.
“I’ll sit with him now till the doctor comes. D’you think you could tell him, and — yes, Mrs. Betts in the cottage with the wistaria next the blacksmith’s? I’m afraid this has been rather a shock to you.”
Sophie nodded, and fled toward the village. Her body failed her for a moment; she dropped beneath a hedge, and looked back at the great house. In some fashion its silence and stolidity103 steadied her for her errand.
Mrs. Betts, small, black-eyed, and dark, was almost as unconcerned as Friars Pardon.
“Yiss, yiss, of course. Dear me! Well, Iggulden he had had his day in my father’s time. Muriel, get me my little blue bag, please. Yiss, ma’am. They come down like ellum-branches in still weather. No warnin’ at all. Muriel, my bicycle’s be’ind the fowlhouse. I’ll tell Dr. Dallas, ma’am.”
She trundled off on her wheel like a brown bee, while Sophie — heaven above and earth beneath changed — walked stiffly home, to fall over George at his letters, in a muddle104 of laughter and tears.
“It’s all quite natural for them,” she gasped105. “They come down like ellum-branches in still weather. Yiss, ma’am.’ No, there wasn’t anything in the least horrible, only — only — Oh, George, that poor shiny stick of his between his poor, thin knees! I couldn’t have borne it if Scottie had howled. I didn’t know the vicar was so — so sensitive. He said he was afraid it was ra — rather a shock. Mrs. Betts told me to go home, and I wanted to collapse106 on her floor. But I didn’t disgrace myself. I— I couldn’t have left him — could I?”
“You’re sure you’ve took no ‘arm?” cried Mrs. Cloke, who had heard the news by farm-telegraphy, which is older but swifter than Marconi’s.
“No. I’m perfectly107 well,” Sophie protested.
“You lay down till tea-time.” Mrs. Cloke patted her shoulder. “THEY’ll be very pleased, though she ‘as ‘ad no proper understandin’ for twenty years.”
“They” came before twilight108 — a black-bearded man in moleskins, and a little palsied old woman, who chirruped like a wren109.
“I’m his son,” said the man to Sophie, among the lavender bushes. “We ‘ad a difference — twenty year back, and didn’t speak since. But I’m his son all the ‘same, and we thank you for the watching.”
“I’m only glad I happened to be there,” she answered, and from the bottom of her heart she meant it.
“We heard he spoke a lot o’ you — one time an’ another since you came. We thank you kindly,” the man added.
“Are you the son that was in America?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. On my uncle’s farm, in Connecticut. He was what they call rood-master there.”
“Whereabouts in Connecticut?” asked George over her shoulder.
“Veering110 Holler was the name. I was there six year with my uncle.”
“How small the world is!” Sophie cried. “Why, all my mother’s people come from Veering Hollow. There must be some there still — the Lashmars. Did you ever hear of them?”
“I remember hearing that name, seems to me,” he answered, but his face was blank as the back of a spade.
A little before dusk a woman in grey, striding like a foot-soldier, and bearing on her arm a long pole, crashed through the orchard calling for food. George, upon whom the unannounced English worked mysteriously, fled to the parlour; but Mrs. Cloke came forward beaming. Sophie could not escape.
“We’ve only just heard of it;” said the stranger, turning on her. “I’ve been out with the otter-hounds all day. It was a splendidly sportin’ thing —”
“Did you — er — kill?” said Sophie. She knew from books she could not go far wrong here.
“Yes, a dry bitch — seventeen pounds,” was the answer. “A splendidly sportin’ thing of you to do. Poor old Iggulden —”
“Oh — that!” said Sophie, enlightened.
“If there had been any people at Pardons it would never have happened. He’d have been looked after. But what can you expect from a parcel of London solicitors111?”
Mrs. Cloke murmured something.
“No. I’m soaked from the knees down. If I hang about I shall get chilled. A cup of tea, Mrs. Cloke, and I can eat one of your sandwiches as I go.” She wiped her weather-worn face with a green and yellow silk handkerchief.
“Yes, my lady!” Mrs. Cloke ran and returned swiftly.
“Our land marches with Pardons for a mile on the south,” she explained, waving the full cup, “but one has quite enough to do with one’s own people without poachin’. Still, if I’d known, I’d have sent Dora, of course. Have you seen her this afternoon, Mrs. Cloke? No? I wonder whether that girl did sprain112 her ankle. Thank you.” It was a formidable hunk of bread and bacon that Mrs. Cloke presented. “As I was sayin’, Pardons is a scandal! Lettin’ people die like dogs. There ought to be people there who do their duty. You’ve done yours, though there wasn’t the faintest call upon you. Good night. Tell Dora, if she comes, I’ve gone on.”
She strode away, munching113 her crust, and Sophie reeled breathless into the parlour, to shake the shaking George.
“Why did you keep catching my eye behind the blind? Why didn’t you come out and do your duty?”
“Because I should have burst. Did you see the mud on its cheek?” he said.
“Once. I daren’t look again. Who is she?”
“God — a local deity114 then. Anyway, she’s another of the things you’re expected to know by instinct.”
Mrs. Cloke, shocked at their levity115, told them that it was Lady Conant, wife of Sir Walter Conant, Baronet, a large landholder in the neighbourhood; and if not God; at least His visible Providence116. George made her talk of that family for an hour.
“Laughter,” said Sophie afterward117 in their own room, “is the mark of the savage118. Why couldn’t you control your emotions? It’s all real to her.”
“It’s all real to me. That’s my trouble,” he answered in an altered tone. “Anyway, it’s real enough to mark time with. Don’t you think so?”
“What d’you mean?” she asked quickly, though she knew his voice.
“That I’m better. I’m well enough to kick.”
“What at?”
“This!” He waved his hand round the one room. “I must have something to play with till I’m fit for work again.”
“Ah!” She sat on the bed and leaned forward, her hands clasped. “I wonder if it’s good for you.”
“We’ve been better here than anywhere,” he went on slowly. “One could always sell it again.”
She nodded gravely, but her eyes sparkled.
“The only thing that worries me is what happened this morning. I want to know how you feel about it. If it’s on your nerves in the least we can have the old farm at the back of the house pulled down, or perhaps it has spoiled the notion for you?”
“Pull it down?” she cried. “You’ve no business faculty119. Why, that’s where we could live while we’re putting the big house in order. It’s almost under the same roof. No! What happened this morning seemed to be more of a — of a leading than anything else. There ought to be people at Pardons. Lady Conant’s quite right.”
“I was thinking more of the woods and the roads. I could double the value of the place in six months.”
“What do they want for it?” She shook her head, and her loosened hair fell glowingly about her cheeks.
“Seventy-five thousand dollars. They’ll take sixty-eight.”
“Less than half what we paid for our old yacht when we married. And we didn’t have a good time in her. You were —”
“Well, I discovered I was too much of an American to be content to be a rich man’s son. You aren’t blaming me for that?”
“Oh, no. Only it was a very businesslike honeymoon. How far are you along with the deal, George?”
“I can mail the deposit on the purchase money tomorrow morning, and we can have the thing completed in a fortnight or three weeks — if you say so.”
“Friars Pardon — Friars Pardon!” Sophie chanted rapturously, her dark gray eyes big with delight. “All the farms? Gale Anstey, Burnt House, Rocketts, the Home Farm, and Griffons? Sure you’ve got ’em all?”
“Sure.” He smiled.
“And the woods? High Pardons Wood, Lower Pardons, Suttons, Dutton’s Shaw, Reuben’s Ghyll, Maxey’s Ghyll, and both the Oak Hangers122? Sure you’ve got ’em all?”
“Every last stick. Why, you know them as well as I do.” He laughed. “They say there’s five thousand — a thousand pounds’ worth of lumber62 — timber they call it — in the Hangers alone.”
“Mrs. Cloke’s oven must be mended first thing, and the kitchen roof. I think I’ll have all this whitewashed,” Sophie broke in, pointing to the ceiling. “The whole place is a scandal. Lady Conant is quite right. George, when did you begin to fall in love with the house? In the greenroom that first day? I did.”
“I’m not in love with it. One must do something to mark time till one’s fit for work.”
“Or when we stood under the oaks, and the door opened? Oh! Ought I to go to poor Iggulden’s funeral?” She sighed with utter happiness.
“Wouldn’t they call it a liberty now?” said he.
“But I liked him.”
“But you didn’t own him at the date of his death.”
“That wouldn’t keep me away. Only, they made such a fuss about the watching”— she caught her breath —“it might be ostentatious from that point of view, too. Oh, George”— she reached for his hand —“we’re two little orphans123 moving in worlds not realized, and we shall make some bad breaks. But we’re going to have the time of our lives.”
“We’ll run up to London tomorrow, and see if we can hurry those English law solicitors. I want to get to work.”
They went. They suffered many things ere they returned across the fields in a fly one Saturday night, nursing a two by two-and-a-half box of deeds and maps — lawful owners of Friars Pardon and the five decayed farms therewith.
“I do most sincerely ‘ope and trust you’ll be ‘appy, Madam,” Mrs. Cloke gasped, when she was told the news by the kitchen fire.
“Goodness! It isn’t a marriage!” Sophie exclaimed, a little awed124; for to them the joke, which to an American means work, was only just beginning.
“If it’s took in a proper spirit”— Mrs. Cloke’s eye turned toward her oven.
“Send and have that mended tomorrow,” Sophie whispered.
“We couldn’t ‘elp noticing,” said Cloke slowly, “from the times you walked there, that you an’ your lady was drawn125 to it, but — but I don’t know as we ever precisely126 thought —” His wife’s glance checked him.
“That we were that sort of people,” said George. “We aren’t sure of it ourselves yet.”
“Perhaps,” said Cloke, rubbing his knees, “just for the sake of saying something, perhaps you’ll park it?”
“What’s that?” said George.
“Turn it all into a fine park like Violet Hill”— he jerked a thumb to westward127 —“that Mr. Sangres bought. It was four farms, and Mr. Sangres made a fine park of them, with a herd128 of faller deer.”
“Then it wouldn’t be Friars Pardon,” said Sophie. “Would it?”
“I don’t know as I’ve ever heard Pardons was ever anything but wheat an’ wool. Only some gentlemen say that parks are less trouble than tenants129.” He laughed nervously131. “But the gentry132, o’ course, they keep on pretty much as they was used to.”
“I see,” said Sophie. “How did Mr. Sangres make his money?”
“I never rightly heard. It was pepper an’ spices, or it may ha’ been gloves. No. Gloves was Sir Reginald Liss at Marley End. Spices was Mr. Sangres. He’s a Brazilian gentleman — very sunburnt like.”
“Be sure o’ one thing. You won’t ‘ave any trouble,” said Mrs. Cloke, just before they went to bed.
Now the news of the purchase was told to Mr. and Mrs. Cloke alone at 8 P.M. of a Saturday. None left the farm till they set out for church next morning. Yet when they reached the church and were about to slip aside into their usual seats, a little beyond the font, where they could see the red-furred tails of the bellropes waggle and twist at ringing time, they were swept forward irresistibly133, a Cloke on either flank (and yet they had not walked with the Clokes), upon the ever-retiring bosom134 of a black-gowned verger, who ushered135 them into a room of a pew at the head of the left aisle136, under the pulpit.
“This,” he sighed reproachfully, “is the Pardons’ Pew,” and shut them in.
They could see little more than the choir137 boys in the chancel, but to the roots of the hair of their necks they felt the congregation behind mercilessly devouring138 them by look.
“When the wicked man turneth away.” The strong, alien voice of the priest vibrated under the hammer-beam roof, and a loneliness unfelt before swamped their hearts, as they searched for places in the unfamiliar139 Church of England service. The Lord’s Prayer “Our Father, which art”— set the seal on that desolation. Sophie found herself thinking how in other lands their purchase would long ere this have been discussed from every point of view in a dozen prints, forgetting that George for months had not been allowed to glance at those black and bellowing140 head-lines. Here was nothing but silence — not even hostility141! The game was up to them; the other players hid their cards and waited. Suspense142, she felt, was in the air, and when her sight cleared, saw, indeed, a mural tablet of a footless bird brooding upon the carven motto, “Wayte awhyle — wayte awhyle.”
At the Litany George had trouble with an unstable143 hassock, and drew the slip of carpet under the pewseat. Sophie pushed her end back also, and shut her eyes against a burning that felt like tears. When she opened them she was looking at her mother’s maiden144 name, fairly carved on a blue flagstone on the pew floor: Ellen Lashmar. ob. 1796. aetat 27.
She nudged George and pointed145. Sheltered, as they kneeled, they looked for more knowledge, but the rest of the slab146 was blank.
“Ever hear of her?” he whispered.
“Never knew any of us came from here.”
“Coincidence?”
“Perhaps. But it makes me feel better,” and she smiled and winked147 away a tear on her lashes148, and took his hand while they prayed for “all women labouring of child”— not “in the perils149 of childbirth”; and the sparrows who had found their way through the guards behind the glass windows chirped150 above the faded gilt151 and alabaster152 family tree of the Conants.
The baronet’s pew was on the right of the aisle. After service its inhabitants moved forth153 without haste, but so as to block effectively a dusky person with a large family who champed in their rear.
“Spices, I think,” said Sophie, deeply delighted as the Sangres closed up after the Conants. “Let ’em get away, George.”
But when they came out many folk whose eyes were one still lingered by the lychgate.
“I want to see if any more Lashmars are buried here,” said Sophie.
“Not now. This seems to be show day. Come home quickly,” he replied.
A group of families, the Clokes a little apart, opened to let them through. The men saluted154 with jerky nods, the women with remnants of a curtsey. Only Iggulden’s son, his mother on his arm, lifted his hat as Sophie passed.
“Your people,” said the clear voice of Lady Conant in her ear.
“I suppose so,” said Sophie, blushing, for they were within two yards of her; but it was not a question.
“Then that child looks as if it were coming down with mumps155. You ought to tell the mother she shouldn’t have brought it to church.”
“I can’t leave ‘er behind, my lady,” the woman said. “She’d set the ’ouse afire in a minute, she’s that forward with the matches. Ain’t you, Maudie dear?”
“Has Dr. Dallas seen her?”
“Not yet, my lady.”
“He must. You can’t get away, of course. M-m! My idiotic156 maid is coming in for her teeth tomorrow at twelve. She shall pick her up — at Gale Anstey, isn’t it?— at eleven.”
“Yes. Thank you very much, my lady.”
“I oughtn’t to have done it,” said Lady Conant apologetically, “but there has been no one at Pardons for so long that you’ll forgive my poaching. Now, can’t you lunch with us? The vicar usually comes too. I don’t use the horses on a Sunday”— she glanced at the Brazilian’s silver-plated chariot. “It’s only a mile across the fields.”
“You — you’re very kind,” said Sophie, hating herself because her lip trembled.
“My dear,” the compelling tone dropped to a soothing157 gurgle, “d’you suppose I don’t know how it feels to come to a strange county — country I should say — away from one’s own people? When I first left the Shires — I’m Shropshire, you know — I cried for a day and a night. But fretting158 doesn’t make loneliness any better. Oh, here’s Dora. She did sprain her leg that day.”
“I’m as lame31 as a tree still,” said the tall maiden frankly. “You ought to go out with the otter-hounds, Mrs. Chapin. I believe they’re drawing your water next week.”
Sir Walter had already led off George, and the vicar came up on the other side of Sophie. There was no escaping the swift procession or the leisurely159 lunch, where talk came and went in low-voiced eddies160 that had the village for their centre. Sophie heard the vicar and Sir Walter address her husband lightly as Chapin! (She also remembered many women known in a previous life who habitually161 addressed their husbands as Mr. Such-an-one.) After lunch Lady Conant talked to her explicitly162 of maternity163 as that is achieved in cottages and farm-houses remote from aid, and of the duty thereto of the mistress of Pardons.
A gate in a beech164 hedge, reached across triple lawns, let them out before tea-time into the unkempt south side of their land.
“I want your hand, please,” said Sophie as soon as they were safe among the beech boles and the lawless hollies165. “D’you remember the old maid in ‘Providence and the Guitar’ who heard the Commissary swear, and hardly reckoned herself a maiden lady afterward? Because I’m a relative of hers. Lady Conant is —”
“Did you find out anything about the Lashmars?” he interrupted.
“I didn’t ask. I’m going to write to Aunt Sydney about it first. Oh, Lady Conant said something at lunch about their having bought some land from some Lashmars a few years ago. I found it was at the beginning of last century.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘Really, how interesting!’ Like that. I’m not going to push myself forward. I’ve been hearing about Mr. Sangres’s efforts in that direction. And you? I couldn’t see you behind the flowers. Was it very deep water, dear?”
George mopped a brow already browned by outdoor exposures.
“Oh no — dead easy,” he answered. “I’ve bought Friars Pardon to prevent Sir Walter’s birds straying.”
A cock pheasant scuttered through the dry leaves and exploded almost under their feet. Sophie jumped.
“That’s one of ’em,” said George calmly.
“Well, your nerves are better, at any rate,” said she. “Did you tell ’em you’d bought the thing to play with?”
“No. That was where my nerve broke down. I only made one bad break — I think. I said I couldn’t see why hiring land to men to farm wasn’t as much a business proposition as anything else.”
“And what did they say?”
“They smiled. I shall know what that smile means some day. They don’t waste their smiles. D’you see that track by Gale Anstey?”
They looked down from the edge of the hanger121 over a cup-like hollow. People by twos and threes in their Sunday best filed slowly along the paths that connected farm to farm.
“I’ve never seen so many on our land before,” said Sophie. “Why is it?”
“To show us we mustn’t shut up their rights of way.”
“Those cow-tracks we’ve been using cross lots?” said Sophie forcibly.
“Yes. Any one of ’em would cost us two thousand pounds each in legal expenses to close.”
“But we don’t want to,” she said.
“The whole community would fight if we did.”
“But it’s our land. We can do what we like.”
“It’s not our land. We’ve only paid for it. We belong to it, and it belongs to the people — our people they call ’em. I’ve been to lunch with the English too.”
They passed slowly from one bracken-dotted field to the next — flushed with pride of ownership, plotting alterations167 and restorations at each turn; halting in their tracks to argue, spreading apart to embrace two views at once, or closing in to consider one. Couples moved out of their way, but smiling covertly168.
“We shall make some bad breaks,” he said at last.
“Together, though. You won’t let anyone else in, will you?”
“Except the contractors169. This syndicate handles, this proposition by its little lone8.”
“But you might feel the want of some one,” she insisted.
“I shall — but it will be you. It’s business, Sophie, but it’s going to be good fun.”
“Please God,” she answered flushing, and cried to herself as they went back to tea. “It’s worth it. Oh, it’s worth it.”
The repairing and moving into Friars Pardon was business of the most varied170 and searching, but all done English fashion, without friction171. Time and money alone were asked. The rest lay in the hands of beneficent advisers172 from London, or spirits, male and female, called up by Mr. and Mrs. Cloke from the wastes of the farms. In the centre stood George and Sophie, a little aghast, their interests reaching out on every side.
“I ain’t sayin’ anything against Londoners,” said Cloke, self-appointed clerk of the outer works, consulting engineer, head of the immigration bureau, and superintendent173 of woods and forests; “but your own people won’t go about to make more than a fair profit out of you.”
“How is one to know?” said George.
“Five years from now, or so on, maybe, you’ll be lookin’ over your first year’s accounts, and, knowin’ what you’ll know then, you’ll say: ‘Well, Billy Beartup’— or Old Cloke as it might be —‘did me proper when I was new.’ No man likes to have that sort of thing laid up against him.”
“I think I see,” said George. “But five years is a long time to look ahead.”
“I doubt if that oak Billy Beartup throwed in Reuben’s Ghyll will be fit for her drawin-room floor in less than seven,” Cloke drawled.
“Yes, that’s my work,” said Sophie. (Billy Beartup of Griffons, a woodman by training and birth, a tenant130 farmer by misfortune of marriage, had laid his broad axe120 at her feet a month before.) “Sorry if I’ve committed you to another eternity174.”
“And we shan’t even know where we’ve gone wrong with your new carriage drive before that time either,” said Cloke, ever anxious to keep the balance true with an ounce or two in Sophie’s favour. The past four months had taught George better than to reply. The carriage road winding175 up the hill was his present keen interest. They set off to look at it, and the imported American scraper which had blighted176 the none too sunny soul of “Skim” Winsh, the carter.
But young Iggulden was in charge now, and under his guidance, Buller and Roberts, the great horses, moved mountains.
“You lif’ her like that, an’ you tip her like that,” he explained to the gang. “My uncle he was roadmaster in Connecticut.”
“Are they roads yonder?” said Skim, sitting under the laurels177.
“No better than accommodation roads. Dirt, they call ’em. They’d suit you, Skim.”
“Why?” said the incautious Skim.
“Cause you’d take no hurt when you fall out of your cart drunk on a Saturday,” was the answer.
“I didn’t last time neither,” Skim roared.
After the loud laugh, old Whybarne of Gale Anstey piped feebly, “Well, dirt or no dirt, there’s no denyin’ Chapin knows a good job when he sees it. ‘E don’t build one day and dee-stroy the next, like that nigger Sangres.”
“SHE’s the one that knows her own mind,” said Pinky, brother to Skim Winsh, and a Napoleon among carters who had helped to bring the grand piano across the fields in the autumn rains.
“She had ought to,” said Iggulden. “Whoa, Buller! She’s a Lashmar. They never was double-thinking.”
“Oh, you found that? Has the answer come from your uncle?” said Skim, doubtful whether so remote a land as America had posts.
The others looked at him scornfully. Skim was always a day behind the fair. Iggulden rested from his labours. “She’s a Lashmar right enough. I started up to write to my uncle — at once — the month after she said her folks came from Veering Holler.”
“Where there ain’t any roads?” Skim interrupted, but none laughed.
“My uncle he married an American woman for his second, and she took it up like a like the coroner. She’s a Lashmar out of the old Lashmar place, ‘fore they sold to Conants. She ain’t no Toot Hill Lashmar, nor any o’ the Crayford lot. Her folk come out of the ground here, neither chalk nor forest, but wildishers. They sailed over to America — I’ve got it all writ166 down by my uncle’s woman — in eighteen hundred an’ nothing. My uncle says they’re all slow begetters like.”
“Would they be gentry yonder now?” Skim asked.
“Nah — there’s no gentry in America, no matter how long you’re there. It’s against their law. There’s only rich and poor allowed. They’ve been lawyers and such like over yonder for a hundred years but she’s a Lashmar for all that.”
“Lord! What’s a hundred years?” said Whybarne, who had seen seventy-eight of them.
“An’ they write too, from yonder — my uncle’s woman writes — that you can still tell ’em by headmark. Their hair’s foxy-red still — an’ they throw out when they walk. He’s intoed-treads like a gipsy; but you watch, an’ you’ll see ‘er throw, out — like a colt.”
“Your trace wants taking up.” Pinky’s large ears had caught the sound of voices, and as the two broke through the laurels the men were hard at work, their eyes on Sophie’s feet.
She had been less fortunate in her inquiries178 than Iggulden, for her Aunt Sydney of Meriden (a badged and certificated Daughter of the Revolution to boot) answered her inquiries with a two-paged discourse179 on patriotism180, the leaflets of a Village Improvement Society, of which she was president, and a demand for an overdue181 subscription182 to a Factory Girls’ Reading Circle. Sophie burned it all in the Orpheus and Eurydice grate, and kept her own counsel.
“What I want to know,” said George, when Spring was coming, and the gardens needed thought, “is who will ever pay me for my labour? I’ve put in at least half a million dollars’ worth already.”
“Sure you’re not taking too much out of yourself?” his wife asked.
“Oh, no; I haven’t been conscious of myself all winter.” He looked at his brown English gaiters and smiled. “It’s all behind me now. I believe I could sit down and think of all that — those months before we sailed.”
“Don’t — ah, don’t!” she cried.
“But I must go back one day. You don’t want to keep me out of business always — or do you?” He ended with a nervous laugh.
Sophie sighed as she drew her own ground-ash (of old Iggulden’s cutting) from the hall rack.
“Aren’t you overdoing183 it too? You look a little tired,” he said.
“You make me tired. I’m going to Rocketts to see Mrs. Cloke about Mary.” (This was the sister of the telegraphist, promoted to be sewing-maid at Pardons.) “Coming?”
“I’m due at Burnt House to see about the new well. By the way, there’s a sore throat at Gale Anstey —”
“That’s my province. Don’t interfere184. The Whybarne children always have sore throats. They do it for jujubes.”
“Keep away from Gale Anstey till I make sure, honey. Cloke ought to have told me.”
“These people don’t tell. Haven’t you learnt that yet? But I’ll obey, me lord. See you later!”
She set off afoot, for within the three main roads that bounded the blunt triangle of the estate (even by night one could scarcely hear the carts on them), wheels were not used except for farm work. The footpaths185 served all other purposes. And though at first they had planned improvements, they had soon fallen in with the customs of their hidden kingdom, and moved about the soft-footed ways by woodland, hedgerow, and shaw as freely as the rabbits. Indeed, for the most part Sophie walked bareheaded beneath her helmet of chestnut186 hair; but she had been plagued of late by vague toothaches, which she explained to Mrs. Cloke, who asked some questions. How it came about Sophie never knew, but after a while behold187 Mrs. Cloke’s arm was about her waist, and her head was on that deep bosom behind the shut kitchen door.
“My dear! My dear!” the elder woman almost sobbed188. “An’ d’you mean to tell me you never suspicioned? Why — why — where was you ever taught anything at all? Of course it is. It’s what we’ve been only waitin’ for, all of us. Time and again I’ve said to Lady —” she checked herself. “An’ now we shall be as we should be.”
“But — but — but —” Sophie whimpered.
“An’ to see you buildin’ your nest so busy — pianos and books — an’ never thinkin’ of a nursery!”
“No more I did.” Sophie sat bolt upright, and began to laugh.
“Time enough yet.” The fingers tapped thoughtfully on the broad knee. “But — they must be strange-minded folk over yonder with you! Have you thought to send for your mother? She dead? My dear, my dear! Never mind! She’ll be happy where she knows. ’Tis God’s work. An’ we was only waitin’ for it, for you’ve never failed in your duty yet. It ain’t your way. What did you say about my Mary’s doings?” Mrs. Cloke’s face hardened as she pressed her chin on Sophie’s forehead. “If any of your girls thinks to be’ave arbitrary now, I’ll — But they won’t, my dear. I’ll see they do their duty too. Be sure you’ll ‘ave no trouble.”
When Sophie walked back across the fields heaven and earth changed about her as on the day of old Iggulden’s death. For an instant she thought of the wide turn of the staircase, and the new ivory-white paint that no coffin corner could scar, but presently, the shadow passed in a pure wonder and bewilderment that made her reel. She leaned against one of their new gates and looked over their lands for some other stay.
“Well,” she said resignedly, half aloud, “we must try to make him feel that he isn’t a third in our party,” and turned the corner that looked over Friars Pardon, giddy, sick, and faint.
Of a sudden the house they had bought for a whim30 stood up as she had never seen it before, low-fronted, broad-winged, ample, prepared by course of generations for all such things. As it had steadied her when it lay desolate189, so now that it had meaning from their few months of life within, it soothed191 and promised good. She went alone and quickly into the hall, and kissed either door-post, whispering: “Be good to me. You know! You’ve never failed in your duty yet.”
When the matter was explained to George, he would have sailed at once to their own land, but this Sophie forbade.
“I don’t want science,” she said. “I just want to be loved, and there isn’t time for that at home. Besides,” she added, looking out of the window, “it would be desertion.”
George was forced to soothe190 himself with linking Friars Pardon to the telegraph system of Great Britain by telephone — three-quarters of a mile of poles, put in by Whybarne and a few friends. One of these was a foreigner from the next parish. Said he when the line was being run: “There’s an old ellum right in our road. Shall us throw her?”
“Toot Hill parish folk, neither grace nor good luck, God help ’em.” Old Whybarne shouted the local proverb from three poles down the line. “We ain’t goin’ to lay any axe-iron to coffin-wood here not till we know where we are yet awhile. Swing round ‘er, swing round!”
To this day, then, that sudden kink in the straight line across the upper pasture remains192 a mystery to Sophie and George. Nor can they tell why Skim Winsh, who came to his cottage under Dutton Shaw most musically drunk at 10.45 P.M of every Saturday night, as his father had done before him, sang no more at the bottom of the garden steps, where Sophie always feared he would break his neck. The path was undoubtedly193 an ancient right of way, and at 10.45 P.M. on Saturdays Skim remembered it was his duty to posterity194 to keep it open — till Mrs. Cloke spoke to him once. She spoke likewise to her daughter Mary, sewing maid at Pardons, and to Mary’s best new friend, the five-foot-seven imported London house-maid, who taught Mary to trim hats, and found the country dullish.
But there was no noise — at no time was there any noise — and when Sophie walked abroad she met no one in her path unless she had signified a wish that way. Then they appeared to protest that all was well with them and their children, their chickens, their roofs, their water-supply, and their sons in the police or the railway service.
“But don’t you find it dull, dear?” said George, loyally doing his best not to worry as the months went by.
“I’ve been so busy putting my house in order I haven’t had time to think,” said she. “Do you?”
“No — no. If I could only be sure of you.”
She turned on the green drawing-room’s couch (it was Empire, not Heppelwhite after all), and laid aside a list of linen and blankets.
“It has changed everything, hasn’t it?” she whispered.
“Oh, Lord, yes. But I still think if we went back to Baltimore —”
“And missed our first real summer together. No thank you, me lord.”
“But we’re absolutely alone.”
“Isn’t that what I’m doing my best to remedy? Don’t you worry. I like it — like it to the marrow195 of my little bones. You don’t realize what her house means to a woman. We thought we were living in it last year, but we hadn’t begun to. Don’t you rejoice in your study, George?”
“I prefer being here with you.” He sat down on the floor by the couch and took her hand.
“Seven,” she said, as the French clock struck. “Year before last you’d just be coming back from business.”
He winced196 at the recollection, then laughed. “Business! I’ve been at work ten solid hours today.”
“Where did you lunch? With the Conants?”
“No; at Dutton Shaw, sitting on a log, with my feet in a swamp. But we’ve found out where the old spring is, and we’re going to pipe it down to Gale Anstey next year.”
“I’ll come and see tomorrow. Oh, please open the door, dear. I want to look down the passage. Isn’t that corner by the stair-head lovely where the sun strikes in?” She looked through half-closed eyes at the vista197 of ivory-white and pale green all steeped in liquid gold.
“There’s a step out of Jane Elphick’s bedroom,” she went on —“and his first step in the world ought to be up. I shouldn’t wonder if those people hadn’t put it there on purpose. George, will it make any odds198 to you if he’s a girl?”
He answered, as he had many times before, that his interest was his wife, not the child.
“Then you’re the only person who thinks so.” She laughed. “Don’t be silly, dear. It’s expected. I know. It’s my duty. I shan’t be able to look our people in the face if I fail.”
“What concern is it of theirs, confound ’em!”
“You’ll see. Luckily the tradition of the house is boys, Mrs. Cloke says, so I’m provided for. Shall you ever begin to understand these people? I shan’t.”
“And we bought it for fun — for fun!” he groaned199. “And here we are held up for goodness knows how long!”
“Why? Were you thinking of selling it?” He did not answer. “Do you remember the second Mrs. Chapin?” she demanded.
This was a bold, brazen200 little black-browed woman — a widow for choice — who on Sophie’s death was guilefully201 to marry George for his wealth and ruin him in a year. George being busy, Sophie had invented her some two years after her marriage, and conceived she was alone among wives in so doing.
“You aren’t going to bring her up again?” he asked anxiously.
“I only want to say that I should hate any one who bought Pardons ten times worse than I used to hate the second Mrs. Chapin. Think what we’ve put into it of our two selves.”
“At least a couple of million dollars. I know I could have made —” He broke off.
“The beasts!” she went on. “They’d be sure to build a red-brick lodge84 at the gates, and cut the lawn up for bedding out. You must leave instructions in your will that he’s never to do that, George, won’t you?”
He laughed and took her hand again but said nothing till it was time to dress. Then he muttered “What the devil use is a man’s country to him when he can’t do business in it?”
Friars Pardon stood faithful to its tradition. At the appointed time was born, not that third in their party to whom Sophie meant to be so kind, but a godling; in beauty, it was manifest, excelling Eros, as in wisdom Confucius; an enhancer of delights, a renewer of companionships and an interpreter of Destiny. This last George did not realise till he met Lady Conant striding through Dutton Shaw a few days after the event.
“My dear fellow,” she cried, and slapped him heartily202 on the back, “I can’t tell you how glad we all are. Oh, she’ll be all right. (There’s never been any trouble over the birth of an heir at Pardons.) Now where the dooce is it?” She felt largely in her leather-boundskirt and drew out a small silver mug. “I sent a note to your wife about it, but my silly ass22 of a groom203 forgot to take this. You can save me a tramp. Give her my love.” She marched off amid her guard of grave Airedales.
The mug was worn and dented204: above the twined initials, G.L., was the crest205 of a footless bird and the motto: “Wayte awhyle — wayte awhyle.”
“That’s the other end of the riddle,” Sophie whispered, when he saw her that evening. “Read her note. The English write beautiful notes.”
The warmest of welcomes to your little man. I hope he will appreciate his native land now he has come to it. Though you have said nothing we cannot, of course, look on him as a little stranger, and so I am sending him the old Lashmar christening mug. It has been with us since Gregory Lashmar, your great-grandmother’s brother —
George stared at his wife.
“Go on,” she twinkled, from the pillows.
— mother’s brother, sold his place to Walter’s family. We seem to have acquired some of your household gods at that time, but nothing survives except the mug and the old cradle, which I found in the potting-shed and am having put in order for you. I hope little George — Lashmar, he will be too, won’t he?— will live to see his grandchildren cut their teeth on his mug.
Affectionately yours,
ALICE CONANT.
P.S.— How quiet you’ve kept about it all!
“Well, I’m —”
“Don’t swear,” said Sophie. “Bad for the infant mind.”
“But how in the world did she get at it? Have you ever said a word about the Lashmars?”
“You know the only time — to young Iggulden at Rocketts — when Iggulden died.”
“Your great-grandmother’s brother! She’s traced the whole connection — more than your Aunt Sydney could do. What does she mean about our keeping quiet?”
Sophie’s eyes sparkled. “I’ve thought that out too. We’ve got back at the English at last. Can’t you see that she thought that we thought my mother’s being a Lashmar was one of those things we’d expect the English to find out for themselves, and that’s impressed her?” She turned the mug in her white hands, and sighed happily. “‘Wayte awhyle — wayte awhyle.’ That’s not a bad motto, George. It’s been worth it.”
“But still I don’t quite see —”
“I shouldn’t wonder if they don’t think our coming here was part of a deep-laid scheme to be near our ancestors. They’d understand that. And look how they’ve accepted us, all of them.”
“Are we so undesirable206 in ourselves?” George grunted207.
“Be just, me lord. That wretched Sangres man has twice our money. Can you see Marm Conant slapping him between the shoulders? Not by a jugful208! The poor beast doesn’t exist!”
“Do you think it’s that then?” He looked toward the cot by the fire where the godling snorted.
“The minute I get well I shall find out from Mrs. Cloke what every Lashmar gives in doles209 (that’s nicer than tips) every time a Lashmite is born. I’ve done my duty thus far, but there’s much expected of me.”
Entered here Mrs. Cloke, and hung worshipping over the cot. They showed her the mug and her face shone. “Oh, now Lady Conant’s sent it, it’ll be all proper, ma’am, won’t it? ‘George’ of course he’d have to be, but seein’ what he is we was hopin’— all your people was hopin’— it ‘ud be ‘Lashmar’ too, and that’ud just round it out. A very ‘andsome mug quite unique, I should imagine. ‘Wayte awhyle — wayte awhyle.’ That’s true with the Lashmars, I’ve heard. Very slow to fill their houses, they are. Most like Master George won’t open ‘is nursery till he’s thirty.”
“Poor lamb!” cried Sophie. “But how did you know my folk were Lashmars?”
Mrs. Cloke thought deeply. “I’m sure I can’t quite say, ma’am, but I’ve a belief likely that it was something you may have let drop to young Iggulden when you was at Rocketts. That may have been what give us an inkling. An’ so it came out, one thing in the way o’ talk leading to another, and those American people at Veering Holler was very obligin’ with news, I’m told, ma’am.”
“Great Scott!” said George, under his breath. “And this is the simple peasant!”
“Yiss,” Mrs. Cloke went on. “An’ Cloke was only wonderin’ this afternoon — your pillow’s slipped my dear, you mustn’t lie that a-way — just for the sake o’ sayin’ something, whether you wouldn’t think well now of getting the Lashmar farms back, sir. They don’t rightly round off Sir Walter’s estate. They come caterin’ across us more. Cloke, ‘e ‘ud be glad to show you over any day.”
“But Sir Walter doesn’t want to sell, does he?”
“We can find out from his bailiff, sir, but”— with cold contempt —“I think that trained nurse is just comin’ up from her dinner, so ‘m afraid we’ll ‘ave to ask you, sir... Now, Master George — Ai-ie! Wake a litty minute, lammie!”
A few months later the three of them were down at the brook in the Gale Anstey woods to consider the rebuilding of a footbridge carried away by spring floods. George Lashmar Chapin wanted all the bluebells210 on God’s earth that day to eat, and — Sophie adored him in a voice like to the cooing of a dove; so business was delayed.
“Here’s the place,” said his father at last among the water forget-me-nots. “But where the deuce are the larch211-poles, Cloke? I told you to have them down here ready.”
“We’ll get ’em down if f you say so,” Cloke answered, with a thrust of the underlip they both knew.
“But I did say so. What on earth have you brought that timber-tug here for? We aren’t building a railway bridge. Why, in America, half-a-dozen two-by-four bits would be ample.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about that,” said Cloke.
“An’ I’ve nothin’ to say against larch — IF you want to make a temp’ry job of it. I ain’t ’ere to tell you what isn’t so, sir; an’ you can’t say I ever come creepin’ up on you, or tryin’ to lead you further in than you set out —”
A year ago George would have danced with impatience212. Now he scraped a little mud off his old gaiters with his spud, and waited.
“All I say is that you can put up larch and make a temp’ry job of it; and by the time the young master’s married it’ll have to be done again. Now, I’ve brought down a couple of as sweet six-by-eight oak timbers as we’ve ever drawed. You put ’em in an’ it’s off your mind or good an’ all. T’other way — I don’t say it ain’t right, I’m only just sayin’ what I think — but t’other way, he’ll no sooner be married than we’ll lave it all to do again. You’ve no call to regard my words, but you can’t get out of that.”
“No,” said George after a pause; “I’ve been realising that for some time. Make it oak then; we can’t get out of it.”
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1
wrest
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| n.扭，拧，猛夺；v.夺取，猛扭，歪曲 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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crumple
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| v.把...弄皱，满是皱痕，压碎，崩溃 | |
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5
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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6
arena
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| n.竞技场，运动场所；竞争场所，舞台 | |
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7
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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8
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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9
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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10
grotto
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| n.洞穴 | |
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11
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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12
continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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13
polyglot
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| adj.通晓数种语言的；n.通晓多种语言的人 | |
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14
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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15
speciously
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| adv.似是而非地；外观好看地，像是真实地 | |
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16
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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17
prescriptions
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| 药( prescription的名词复数 )； 处方； 开处方； 计划 | |
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18
pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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19
loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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20
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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21
charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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22
ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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23
folklore
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| n.民间信仰，民间传说，民俗 | |
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24
bumpy
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| adj.颠簸不平的，崎岖的 | |
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25
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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26
wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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27
whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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28
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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29
chirping
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| 鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的现在分词 ) | |
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30
whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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31
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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32
casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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33
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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34
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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35
spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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36
footpath
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| n.小路，人行道 | |
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radius
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| n.半径，半径范围；有效航程，范围，界限 | |
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38
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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39
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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41
prancing
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| v.（马）腾跃( prance的现在分词 ) | |
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42
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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43
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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44
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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45
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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46
shrilly
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| 尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的 | |
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47
rampant
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| adj.(植物)蔓生的；狂暴的，无约束的 | |
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48
feigning
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| 假装，伪装( feign的现在分词 )； 捏造（借口、理由等） | |
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49
lawful
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| adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的 | |
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50
glistened
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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52
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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53
wreckage
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| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
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54
tapestries
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| n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 )；绣帷，织锦v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 ) | |
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55
prostration
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| n. 平伏, 跪倒, 疲劳 | |
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56
thicket
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| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
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57
magpies
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| 喜鹊（magpie的复数形式） | |
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58
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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59
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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60
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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61
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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62
lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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63
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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64
scrolls
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| n.（常用于录写正式文件的）纸卷( scroll的名词复数 )；卷轴；涡卷形（装饰）；卷形花纹v.（电脑屏幕上）从上到下移动（资料等），卷页( scroll的第三人称单数 )；（似卷轴般）卷起；（像展开卷轴般地）将文字显示于屏幕 | |
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65
enraptured
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| v.使狂喜( enrapture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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67
parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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68
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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69
scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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70
hop
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| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
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71
staple
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| n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类 | |
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72
brittle
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| adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的 | |
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73
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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74
maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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75
larders
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| n.（家中的）食物贮藏室，食物橱( larder的名词复数 ) | |
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76
rambled
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的过去式和过去分词 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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77
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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78
buttresses
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| n.扶壁，扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
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79
thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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80
sprouted
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| v.发芽( sprout的过去式和过去分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出 | |
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81
repentant
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| adj.对…感到悔恨的 | |
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82
crater
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| n.火山口，弹坑 | |
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83
lodgers
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| n.房客，租住者( lodger的名词复数 ) | |
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84
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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85
collaterals
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| n.附属担保品( collateral的名词复数 ) | |
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86
serially
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| adv.连续地，连续刊载地 | |
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87
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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88
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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89
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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90
humane
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| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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91
waylay
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| v.埋伏，伏击 | |
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92
ransack
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| v.彻底搜索，洗劫 | |
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93
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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94
fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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95
flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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96
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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97
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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98
besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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99
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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100
slash
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| vi.大幅度削减；vt.猛砍，尖锐抨击，大幅减少；n.猛砍，斜线，长切口，衣衩 | |
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101
rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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102
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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103
stolidity
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| n.迟钝，感觉麻木 | |
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104
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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105
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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106
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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107
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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108
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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109
wren
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| n.鹪鹩；英国皇家海军女子服务队成员 | |
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110
veering
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| n.改变的；犹豫的；顺时针方向转向；特指使船尾转向上风来改变航向v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的现在分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转 | |
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111
solicitors
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| 初级律师( solicitor的名词复数 ) | |
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112
sprain
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| n.扭伤,扭筋 | |
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113
munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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114
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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115
levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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116
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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117
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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118
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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119
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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120
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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121
hanger
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| n.吊架，吊轴承；挂钩 | |
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122
hangers
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| n.衣架( hanger的名词复数 )；挂耳 | |
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123
orphans
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| 孤儿( orphan的名词复数 ) | |
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124
awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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125
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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126
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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127
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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128
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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129
tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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130
tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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131
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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132
gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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133
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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134
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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135
ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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136
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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137
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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138
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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139
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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140
bellowing
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的现在分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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141
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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142
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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143
unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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144
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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145
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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146
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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147
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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148
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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149
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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150
chirped
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| 鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的过去式 ) | |
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151
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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152
alabaster
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| adj.雪白的；n.雪花石膏；条纹大理石 | |
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153
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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154
saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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155
mumps
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| n.腮腺炎 | |
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156
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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157
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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158
fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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159
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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160
eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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161
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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162
explicitly
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| ad.明确地，显然地 | |
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163
maternity
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| n.母性，母道，妇产科病房；adj.孕妇的，母性的 | |
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164
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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165
hollies
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| n.冬青（常绿灌木，叶尖而硬，有光泽，冬季结红色浆果）( holly的名词复数 )；（用作圣诞节饰物的）冬青树枝 | |
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166
writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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167
alterations
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| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
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168
covertly
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| adv.偷偷摸摸地 | |
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169
contractors
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| n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 ) | |
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170
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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171
friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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172
advisers
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| 顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授 | |
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173
superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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174
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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175
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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176
blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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177
laurels
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| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
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178
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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179
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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180
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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181
overdue
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| adj.过期的，到期未付的；早该有的，迟到的 | |
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182
subscription
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| n.预订，预订费，亲笔签名，调配法，下标（处方） | |
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183
overdoing
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| v.做得过分( overdo的现在分词 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度 | |
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184
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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185
footpaths
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| 人行小径，人行道( footpath的名词复数 ) | |
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186
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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187
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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188
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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189
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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190
soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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191
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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192
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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193
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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194
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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195
marrow
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| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
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196
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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197
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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198
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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199
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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200
brazen
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| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
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201
guilefully
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| adj.狡诈的，诡计多端的 | |
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202
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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203
groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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204
dented
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| v.使产生凹痕( dent的过去式和过去分词 )；损害；伤害；挫伤（信心、名誉等） | |
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205
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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206
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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207
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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208
jugful
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| 一壶的份量 | |
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209
doles
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| 救济物( dole的名词复数 )； 失业救济金 | |
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210
bluebells
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| n.圆叶风铃草( bluebell的名词复数 ) | |
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211
larch
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| n.落叶松 | |
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212
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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