“Have you had a busy day, dear?” Aunt Lin asked, opening her table napkin and arranging it across her plump lap.
This was a sentence that made sense but had no meaning. It was as much an overture1 to dinner as the spreading of her napkin, and the exploratory movement of her right foot as she located the footstool which compensated2 for her short legs. She expected no answer; or rather, being unaware3 that she had asked the question, she did not listen to his answer.
Robert looked up the table at her with a more conscious benevolence4 than usual. After his uncharted step-picking at The Franchise5, the serenity6 of Aunt Lin’s presence was very comforting, and he looked with a new awareness7 at the solid little figure with the short neck and the round pink face and the iron-grey hair that frizzed out from its large hairpins8. Linda Bennet led a life of recipes, film stars, god-children, and church bazaars9, and found it perfect. Well-being10 and contentment enveloped11 her like a cloak. She read the Women’s Page of the daily paper (How To Make A Boutonnière From Old Kid Gloves) and nothing else as far as Robert was aware. Occasionally when she tidied away the paper that Robert had left lying about, she would pause to read the headlines and comment on them. (“MAN ENDS EIGHTY-TWO DAY FAST”— Silly creature! “OIL DISCOVERY IN BAHAMAS”— Did I tell you that paraffin is up a penny, dear?) But she gave the impression of never really believing that the world the papers reported did in fact exist. The world for Aunt Lin began with Robert Blair and ended within a ten-mile radius12 of him.
“What kept you so late tonight, dear?” she asked, having finished her soup.
From long experience Robert recognised this as being in a different category from: “Have you had a busy day, dear?”
“I had to go out to The Franchise — that house on the Larborough road. They wanted some legal advice.”
“Those odd people? I didn’t know you knew them.”
“I didn’t. They just wanted my advice.”
“I hope they pay you for it, dear. They have no money at all, you know. The father was in some kind of importing business — monkey-nuts or something — and drank himself to death. Left them without a penny, poor things. Old Mrs. Sharpe ran a boarding-house in London to make ends meet, and the daughter was maid-of-all-work. They were just going to be turned into the street with their furniture, when the old man at The Franchise died. So providential!”
“Aunt Lin! Where do you get those stories?”
“But it’s true, dear. Perfectly13 true. I forget who told me — someone who had stayed in the same street in London — but it was first-hand, anyhow. I am not one to pass on idle gossip, as you know. Is it a nice house? I always wondered what was inside that iron gate.”
“No, rather ugly. But they have some nice pieces of furniture.”
“Not as well kept as ours, I’ll be bound,” she said, looking complacently14 at the perfect sideboard and the beautiful chairs ranged against the wall. “The vicar said yesterday that if this house were not so obviously a home it would be a show place.” Mention of the clergy15 seemed to remind her of something. “By the way, will you be extra patient with Christina for the next few days. I think she is going to be ‘saved’ again.”
“Oh, poor Aunt Lin, what a bore for you. But I was afraid of it. There was a ‘text’ in the saucer of my early-morning tea today. ‘Thou God seest me’ on a pink scroll16, with a tasteful design of Easter lilies in the background. Is she changing her church again, then?”
“Yes. She has discovered that the Methodists are ‘whited sepulchres,’ it seems, so she is going to those ‘Bethel’ people above Benson’s bakery, and is due to be ‘saved’ any day now. She has been shouting hymns17 all the morning.”
“But she always does.”
“Not ‘sword of the Lord’ ones. As long as she sticks to ‘pearly crowns’ or ‘streets of gold’ I know it is all right. But once she begins on the ‘sword of the Lord’ I know that it will be my turn to do the baking presently.”
“Well, darling, you bake just as well as Christina.”
“Oh, no, she doesn’t,” said Christina, coming in with the meat course. A big soft creature with untidy straight hair and a vague eye. “Only one thing your Aunt Lin makes better than me, Mr. Robert, and that’s hot cross buns, and that’s only once a year. So there! And if I’m not appreciated in this house, I’ll go where I will be.”
“Christina, my love!” Robert said, “you know very well that no one could imagine this house without you, and if you left I should follow you to the world’s end. For your butter tarts18, if for nothing else. Can we have butter tarts tomorrow, by the way?”
“Butter tarts are no food for unrepentant sinners. Besides I don’t think I have the butter. But we’ll see. Meanwhile, Mr. Robert, you examine your soul and stop casting stones.”
Aunt Lin sighed gently as the door closed behind her. “Twenty years,” she said meditatively19. “You won’t remember her when she first came from the orphanage20. Fifteen, and so skinny, poor little brat21. She ate a whole loaf for her tea, and said she would pray for me all her life. I think she has, you know.”
Something like a tear glistened22 in Miss Bennet’s blue eye.
“I hope she postpones23 the salvation24 until she has made those butter tarts,” said Robert, brutally25 materialistic26. “Did you enjoy your picture?”
“Well, dear, I couldn’t forget that he had five wives.”
“Who has?”
“Had, dear. One at a time. Gene27 Darrow. I must say, those little programmes they give away are very informative28 but a little disillusioning29. He was a student, you see. In the picture, I mean. Very young and romantic. But I kept remembering those five wives, and it spoiled the afternoon for me. So charming to look at too. They say he dangled30 his third wife out of a fifth-storey window by the wrists, but I don’t really believe that. He doesn’t look strong enough, for one thing. Looks as if he had chest trouble as a child. That peaky look, and thin wrists. Not strong enough to dangle31 anyone. Certainly not out of a fifth-storey. . . . ”
The gentle monologue32 went on, all through the pudding course; and Robert withdrew his attention and thought about The Franchise. He came to the surface as they rose from table and moved into the sitting-room33 for coffee.
“It is the most becoming garment, if maids would only realise it,” she was saying.
“What is?”
“An apron34. She was a maid in the palace, you know, and wore one of those silly little bits of muslin. So becoming. Did those people at The Franchise have a maid, by the way? No? Well, I am not surprised. They starved the last one, you know. Gave her ——”
“Oh, Aunt Lin!“
“I assure you. For breakfast she got the crusts they cut off the toast. And when they had milk pudding . . . ”
Robert did not hear what enormity was born of the milk pudding. In spite of his good dinner he was suddenly tired and depressed35. If kind silly Aunt Lin saw no harm in repeating those absurd stories, what would the real gossips of Milford achieve with the stuff of a real scandal?
“And talking of maids — the brown sugar is finished, dear, so you will have to have lump for tonight — talking of maids, the Carleys’ little maid has got herself into trouble.”
“You mean someone else has got her into trouble.”
“Yes. Arthur Wallis, the potman at The White Hart.”
“What, Wallis again!”
“Yes, it really is getting past a joke, isn’t it. I can’t think why the man doesn’t get married. It would be much cheaper.”
But Robert was not listening. He was back in the drawing-room at The Franchise, being gently mocked for his legal intolerance of a generalisation. Back in the shabby room with the unpolished furniture, where things lay about on chairs and no one bothered to tidy them away.
And where, now he came to think of it, no one ran round after him with an ash-tray.
收听单词发音 |
1
overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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compensated
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| 补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款） | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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franchise
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| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
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serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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awareness
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| n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智 | |
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hairpins
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| n.发夹( hairpin的名词复数 ) | |
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bazaars
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| （东方国家的）市场( bazaar的名词复数 )； 义卖； 义卖市场； （出售花哨商品等的）小商品市场 | |
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well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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scroll
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| n.卷轴，纸卷；(石刻上的)漩涡 | |
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hymns
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
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tarts
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| n.果馅饼( tart的名词复数 )；轻佻的女人；妓女；小妞 | |
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meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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orphanage
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| n.孤儿院 | |
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brat
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| n.孩子；顽童 | |
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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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postpones
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| v.延期，推迟( postpone的第三人称单数 ) | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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materialistic
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| a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的 | |
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gene
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| n.遗传因子，基因 | |
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informative
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| adj.提供资料的，增进知识的 | |
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disillusioning
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| 使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭( disillusion的现在分词 ) | |
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dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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31
dangle
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| v.(使)悬荡，(使)悬垂 | |
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32
monologue
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| n.长篇大论，（戏剧等中的）独白 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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