These dreams, however, were destined5 never to be realised, for within a year after their arrival in Melbourne Mrs Curtis died giving birth to a little girl, and Robert Curtis found himself once more alone in the world with the encumbrance6 of a small child. He, however, was not a man who wore his heart on his sleeve, and did not show much outward grief, though, no doubt, he sorrowed deeply enough for the loss of the pretty girl for whom he had sacrificed so much. At all events, he made up his mind at once what to do: so, placing his child under the care of an old lady, he went to Ballarat, and set to work to make his fortune.
While there his luck became proverbial, and he soon found himself a rich man; but this did not satisfy him, for, being of a far-seeing nature, he saw the important part Australia would play in the world’s history. So with the gold won by his pick he bought land everywhere, and especially in Melbourne, which was even then becoming metropolitan7. After fifteen years of a varied8 life he returned to Melbourne to settle down, and found that his daughter had grown up to be a charming young girl, the very image of his late wife. Curtis built a house, went in for politics, and soon became a famous man in his adopted country. He settled a large sum of money on his daughter absolutely, which no one, not even her future husband, could touch, and introduced her to society.
Miss Curtis became the belle9 of Melbourne, and her charming face, together with the more substantial beauties of wealth, soon brought crowds of suitors around her. Her father, however, determined10 to find a husband for her whom he could trust, and was looking for one when he suddenly died of heart disease, leaving his daughter an orphan11 and a wealthy woman.
After Mr Curtis had been buried by the side of his dead wife, the heiress went home to her richly-furnished house, and after passing a certain period in mourning, engaged a companion, and once more took her position in society.
Her suitors — numerous and persistent12 as those of Penelope — soon returned to her feet, and she found she could choose a husband from men of all kinds — rich and poor, handsome and ugly, old and young. One of these, a penniless young Englishman, called Randolph Villiers, payed her such marked attention, that in the end Miss Curtis, contrary to the wishes of her friends, married him.
Mr Villiers had a handsome face and figure, a varied and extensive wardrobe, and a bad character. He, however, suppressed his real tastes until he became the husband of Miss Curtis, and holder13 of the purse — for such was the love his wife bore him that she unhesitatingly gave him full control of all her property, excepting that which was settled on herself by her father, which was, of course, beyond marital14 control. In vain her friends urged some settlement should be made before marriage. Miss Curtis argued that to take any steps to protect her fortune would show a want of faith in the honesty of the man she loved, so went to the altar and reversed the marriage service by endowing Mr Randolph Villiers with all her worldly goods.
The result of this blind confidence justified15 the warnings of her friends — for as soon as Villiers found himself in full possession of his wife’s fortune, he immediately proceeded to spend all the money he could lay his hands on. He gambled away large sums at his club, betted extensively on the turf, kept open house, and finally became entangled16 with a lady whose looks were much better than her morals, and whose capacity for spending money so far exceeded his own that in two years she completely ruined him. Mrs Villiers put up with this conduct for some time, as she was too proud to acknowledge she had made a mistake in her choice of a husband; but when Villiers, after spending all her wealth in riotous17 living, actually proceeded to ill-treat her in order to force her to give up the money her father had settled on her, she rebelled. She tore off her wedding-ring, threw it at his feet, renounced18 his name, and went off to Ballarat with her old nurse and the remnants of her fortune.
Mr Villiers, however, was not displeased19 at this step; in fact, he was rather glad to get rid of a wife who could no longer supply him with money, and whose presence was a constant rebuke20. He sold up the house and furniture, and converted all available property into cash, which cash he then converted into drink for himself and jewellery for his lady friend. The end soon came to the fresh supply of money, and his lady friend went off with his dearest companion, to whose purse she had taken a sudden liking21. Villiers, deserted22 by all his acquaintances, sank lower and lower in the social scale, and the once brilliant butterfly of fashion became a billiard marker, then a tout23 at races, and finally a bar loafer with no visible means of support.
Meantime Mrs Villiers was prospering24 in Ballarat, and gaining the respect and good opinion of everyone, while her husband was earning the contempt of not only his former friends but even of the creatures with whom he now associated. When Mrs Villiers went up to Ballarat after her short but brilliant life in Melbourne she felt crushed. She had given all the wealth of her girlish affection to her husband, and had endowed him with all kinds of chivalrous25 attributes, only to find out, as many a woman has done before and since, that her idol26 had feet of clay. The sudden shock of the discovery of his baseness altered the whole of her life, and from being a bright, trustful girl, she became a cold suspicious woman who disbelieved in everyone and in everything.
But she was of too restless and ambitious a nature to be content with an idle life, and although the money she still possessed27 was sufficient to support her in comfort, yet she felt that she must do something, if only to keep her thoughts from dwelling28 on those bitter years of married life. The most obvious thing to do in Ballarat was to go in for gold-mining, and chance having thrown in her way a mate of her father’s, she determined to devote herself to that, being influenced in her decision by the old digger. This man, by name Archibald McIntosh, was a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman, who had been in Ballarat when the diggings were in the height of their fame, and who knew all about the lie of the country and where the richest leads had been in the old days. He told Mrs Villiers that her father and himself had worked together on a lead then known as the Devil’s Lead, which was one of the richest ever discovered in the district. It had been found by five men, who had agreed with one another to keep silent as to the richness of the lead, and were rapidly making their fortunes when the troubles of the Eureka stockade29 intervened, and, in the encounter between the miners and the military, three of the company working the lead were killed, and only two men were left who knew the whereabouts of the claim and the value of it. These were McIntosh and Curtis, who were the original holders30. Mr Curtis, went down to Melbourne, and, as previously31 related, died of heart disease, so the only man left of the five who had worked the lead was Archibald McIntosh. He had been too poor to work it himself, and, having failed to induce any speculator to go in with him to acquire the land, he had kept silent about it, only staying up at Ballarat and guarding the claim lest someone else should chance on it. Fortunately the place where it was situated32 had not been renowned33 for gold in the early days, and it had passed into the hands of a man who used it as pasture land, quite ignorant of the wealth which lay beneath. When Mrs Villiers came up to Ballarat, this man wanted to sell the land, as he was going to Europe; so, acting34 under the urgent advice of McIntosh, she sold out of all the investments which she had and purchased the whole tract35 of country where the old miner assured her solemnly the Devil’s Lead was to be found.
Then she built a house near the mine, and taking her old nurse, Selina Sprotts, and Archibald McIntosh to live with her, sank a shaft36 in the place indicated by the latter. She also engaged miners, and gave McIntosh full control over the mine, while she herself kept the books, paid the accounts, and proved herself to be a first-class woman of business. She had now been working the mine for two years, but as yet had not been fortunate enough to strike the lead. The gutter37, however, proved remunerative38 enough to keep the mine going, pay all the men, and support Mrs Villiers herself, so she was quite content to wait till fortune should smile on her, and the long-looked-for Devil’s Lead turned up. People who had heard of her taking the land were astonished at first, and disposed to scoff39, but they soon begun to admire the plucky40 way in which she fought down her ill-luck for the first year of her venture. All at once matters changed; she made a lucky speculation41 in the share market, and the Pactolus claim began to pay. Mrs Villiers became mixed up in mining matters, and bought and sold on ‘Change with such foresight42 and promptitude of action that she soon began to make a lot of money. Stockbrokers43 are not, as a rule, romantic, but one of the fraternity was so struck with her persistent good fortune that he christened her Madame Midas, after that Greek King whose touch turned everything into gold. This name tickled44 the fancy of others, and in a short time she was called nothing but Madame Midas all over the country, which title she accepted complacently45 enough as a forecast of her success in finding the Devil’s Lead, which idea had grown into a mania46 with her as it already was with her faithful henchman, McIntosh.
When Mr Villiers therefore arrived in Ballarat, he found his wife universally respected and widely known as Madame Midas, so he went to see her, expecting to be kept in luxurious47 ease for the rest of his life. He soon, however, found himself mistaken, for his wife told him plainly she would have nothing to do with him, and that if he dared to show his face at the Pactolus claim she would have him turned off by her men. He threatened to bring the law into force to make her live with him, but she laughed in his face, and said she would bring a divorce suit against him if he did so; and as Mr Villiers’ character could hardly bear the light of day, he retreated, leaving Madame in full possession of the field.
He stayed, however, in Ballarat, and took up stockbroking48 — living a kind of hand-to-mouth existence, bragging49 of his former splendour, and swearing at his wife for what he was pleased to call — her cruelty. Every now and then he would pay a visit to the Pactolus, and try to see her, but McIntosh was a vigilant50 guard, and the miserable51 creature was always compelled to go back to his Bohemian life without accomplishing his object of getting money from the wife he had deserted.
People talked, of course, but Madame did not mind. She had tried married life, and had been disappointed; her old ideas of belief in human nature had passed away; in short, the girl who had been the belle of Melbourne as Miss Curtis and Mrs Villiers had disappeared, and the stern, clever, cynical52 woman who managed the Pactolus claim was a new being called ‘Madame Midas’.
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1
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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variance
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| n.矛盾，不同 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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encumbrance
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| n.妨碍物，累赘 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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holder
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| n.持有者，占有者；(台，架等)支持物 | |
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marital
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| adj.婚姻的，夫妻的 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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17
riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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18
renounced
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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19
displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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21
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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prospering
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的现在分词 ) | |
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chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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stockade
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| n.栅栏，围栏；v.用栅栏防护 | |
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30
holders
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| 支持物( holder的名词复数 )； 持有者； （支票等）持有人； 支托（或握持）…之物 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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renowned
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| adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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35
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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36
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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remunerative
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| adj.有报酬的 | |
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39
scoff
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| n.嘲笑，笑柄，愚弄；v.嘲笑，嘲弄，愚弄，狼吞虎咽 | |
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40
plucky
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| adj.勇敢的 | |
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41
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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42
foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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43
stockbrokers
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| n.股票经纪人( stockbroker的名词复数 ) | |
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44
tickled
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| （使）发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）愉快，逗乐 | |
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45
complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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46
mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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47
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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48
stockbroking
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| n.炒股 | |
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49
bragging
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的现在分词 )；大话 | |
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50
vigilant
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| adj.警觉的，警戒的，警惕的 | |
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51
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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52
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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