It had been a morning of adjustment; physical, mental, and spiritual. Fr?ken7 had come back from the West Larborough hospital to put a worried lot of Seniors through a routine that would allow for the fact that they were one short. Under her robust8 calm they took the alterations9, and necessity for them, with a fair degree of equanimity10; although she reported that at least a third of them shied like nervous colts each time they handled the right-hand front boom, or passed the place where it had fallen. It was going to be a miracle, Fr?ken said with resignation, if they got through this afternoon’s performance without someone or other making a fool of themselves. As soon as Fr?ken had released them Madame Lefevre took them over for a much lengthier11 session. Thanks to her physical prowess, Rouse had been part of almost every item on the ballet programme; which meant that almost every item had to undergo either patching or reconstruction12. This thankless and wearisome business had lasted until nearly lunch-time, and the echoes of it were still audible. Most of the lunch-table conversation appeared to consist of remarks like: “Is it you I give my right hand to when Stewart passes in front of me?” and Dakers lightened the universal anxiety by being overtaken by one of those sudden silences common to all gatherings13, which left her announcing loudly that my dears, the last hour had proved that one could be in two places at the same time.
The most fundamental adjustment, however, occurred when both Fr?ken and Madame had finished their respective revisions. It was then that Miss Hodge had sent for Innes and offered her Rouse’s place at Arlinghurst. Hospital had confirmed Fr?ken’s diagnosis14 of a fracture, and there was no chance that Rouse would be able for work until many months had passed. How Innes had taken this no one knew; all that anyone knew was that she had accepted. The appointment, having all the qualities of anti-climax and being overshadowed by an authentic15 sensation, was taken as a matter of course; and as far as Lucy could see neither Staff nor students gave it a thought. Madame’s sardonic16: “The Deity17 disposes,” was the solitary18 comment.
But Lucy was less happy about it. A vague uneasy stirring plagued her like some mental indigestion. The patness of the thing worried her. The accident had happened not only opportunely19 but at the last available moment. Tomorrow there would have been no need for Rouse to go to the gymnasium and practise; there would have been no boom set up and no pin to be insecurely placed. And there were those damp foot-marks in the early morning. If they were not Rouse’s own, whose were they? As Lux had very truly observed, no one could be dragged anywhere near the gymnasium at that hour by anything less compelling than wild horses.
It was possible that they were Rouse’s prints and that she had done something else before going into the gymnasium for her few minutes on the boom. Lucy could not swear that the footprints actually went into the building; she could remember no actual print on either of the two steps. She had merely seen the damp marks on the covered way and concluded, without thinking about it at all, that Rouse was ahead of her. The prints may have continued round the building, for all she knew. They may have had nothing to do with the gymnasium at all. Nothing to do with the students, even. It was possible that those heelless impressions, so vague and blurred20, were made by a maid-servant’s early-morning shoes.
All that was possible. But allied21 to the steps that were not likely to be Rouse’s was the oddity of a small metal ornament22 lying on a floor that had been swept twenty minutes before by a powerful vacuum-cleaner. An ornament lying directly between the door and the waiting boom. And whatever was conjecture23, one thing was certain: the ornament was not lost by Rouse. Not only had she almost certainly not been in the gymnasium this morning before Lucy entered it, but she did not possess a pair of pumps. Lucy knew, because one of her helpful chores today had been to pack poor Rouse’s things. Miss Joliffe, whose task it would nominally24 have been, was overwhelmed by preparations for the afternoon’s entertainment, and had passed the duty on to Wragg. Wragg had no student to enlist25 as substitute, since they were all busy with Madame, and it was not a duty that could be entrusted26 to a Junior. So Lucy had willingly taken over the job, glad to find a way to be of use. And her first action in Number Fourteen had been to take Rouse’s shoes out of the cupboard and look at them. The only pair that were not there were her gymnastic shoes, which presumably had been what she wore this morning. But to be sure she summoned O’Donnell when she heard the Seniors come back from the gymnasium and said: “You know Miss Rouse very well, don’t you? Would you cast your eye over these shoes and tell me whether they are all she had, before I begin packing them.”
O’Donnell considered, and said yes, these were all. “Except her gym. shoes,” she added. “She was wearing those.”
That seemed to settle it.
“Nothing away being cleaned?”
“No, we clean our own — except for our hockey boots in winter.”
Well, that seemed to be that. What Rouse had worn this morning were regulation College gym. shoes. It was not off any shoes of Rouse’s that the little filigree27 rosette had come.
Then from where? Lucy asked herself as she packed Rouse’s belongings28 with a care she never accorded her own. From where?
She was still asking herself that as she changed her dress for the party. She put the rosette into one of the small drawers of the dressing-table-desk affair, and dully looked over her scanty29 collection of clothes for something that would be suitable to a garden-party afternoon. From her second window, the one looking out on the garden, she could see the Juniors busy with small tables and basket-chairs and tea-umbrellas. Their ant-like running about was producing a gay border of colour round three sides of the lawn. The sun streamed down on them, and the picture in its definition and variety of detail was like a Brueghel gone suddenly gay.
But Lucy, looking down at the picture and remembering how she had looked forward to this occasion, felt sick at heart; and could not bring herself yet to acknowledge why she should be heartsick. Only one thing was clear to her. Tonight she must go to Henrietta with the little rosette. When all the excitement was over and Henrietta had time to be quiet and consider, then the problem — if there was a problem — must be handed over to her. She, Lucy, had been wrong last time when she had tried to save Henrietta suffering by dropping the little red book into the water; this time she must do her duty. The rosette was no concern of hers.
No. It was no concern of hers. Certainly not.
She decided30 that the blue linen31 with the narrow red belt was sufficiently Hanover Square to satisfy the most critical of parents from the provinces, brushed the suede32 shoes with the brush so dutifully included by Mrs Montmorency, and went down to help wherever she could be useful.
By two o’clock the first guests were arriving; going into the office to pay their respects to Miss Hodge, and then being claimed by excited offspring. Fathers prodded33 doubtfully at odd gadgets34 in the clinic, mothers prodded the beds in the wing, and horticultural uncles prodded Giddy’s roses in the garden. She tried to find distraction35 in “pairing” the parents she met with the appropriate student. She noticed that she was searching unconsciously for Mr and Mrs Innes and anticipating their meeting with something that was half dread36. Why dread? she asked herself. There was nothing in the world to dread, was there? Certainly not. Everything was lovely. Innes had after all got Arlinghurst; the day was after all a triumph for her.
She came on them unexpectedly, round the corner of the sweet-pea hedge; Innes walking between them with her arms through theirs and a light on her face. It was not the radiance that had shone in her eyes a week ago, but it was a good enough substitute. She looked worn but at peace; as if some inner battle was over, the issue settled for good or bad.
“You knew them,” she said to Miss Pym, indicating her parents, “and you never told me.”
It was like meeting old friends, Lucy thought. It was unbelievable that her only traffic with these people had been across a coffee table for an hour on a summer morning. She seemed to have known them all her life. And she felt that they in their turn felt like that about her. They really were glad to see her again. They remembered things and asked about them, referred to things she had said, and generally behaved as if she not only was of importance in their scheme of things, but was actually part of that scheme. And Lucy, used to the gushing37 indifference38 of literary parties, felt her heart warm afresh to them.
Innes left them together and went away to get ready for the gymnastic display that would open the afternoon’s programme, and Lucy walked over to the gymnasium with them.
“Mary is looking very ill,” her mother said. “Is there anything wrong?”
Lucy hesitated, wondering how much Innes had told them.
“She has told us about the accident, and about falling heir to Arlinghurst. I don’t suppose she is very happy at profiting by another student’s bad luck, but it can’t be just that.”
Lucy thought that the more they understood about the affair the better it would be if — well, the better it would be anyhow.
“Everyone took it for granted that she would get the appointment in the first place. I think it was a shock to her when she didn’t.”
“I see. Yes,” said Mrs Innes, slowly; and Lucy felt that more explanation was not necessary; the whole tale of Innes’s suffering and fortitude39 was clear to her mother in that moment.
“I think she might not approve of my having told you that, so —”
“No, we will not mention it,” said Innes’s mother. “How lovely the garden is looking. Gervase and I struggle along with our patch but only his bits look like the illustration; mine always turn out to be something else. Just look at those little yellow roses.”
And so they came to the gymnasium door, and Lucy showed them up the stairs and introduced them to The Abhorrence40 — with pricking41 thought of a little metal rosette — and they found their seats in the gallery, and the afternoon had begun.
Lucy had a seat at the end of the front row. From there she looked down with affection on the grave young faces waiting, with such tense resolution, Fr?ken’s word of command. “Don’t worry,” she had heard a Senior say, “Fr?ken will see us through,” and one could see the faith in their eyes. This was their ordeal42, and they came to it shaken, but Fr?ken would see them through.
She understood now the love that had filled Henrietta’s eyes when she had watched with her on that other occasion. Less than a fortnight ago, that was, and already she had a proprietorial43 interest and pride in them. When the autumn came the very map of England would look different to her because of these two weeks at Leys. Manchester would be the place where the Disciples44 were, Aberystwyth the place where Thomas was trying to stay awake, Ling the place where Dakers was being good with the babies, and so on. If she felt like that about them after a matter of days, it was not much wonder that Henrietta, who had seen them come untried into their new life, had watched them grow and improve, struggle, fail, and succeed, not much wonder that she looked on them as daughters. Successful daughters.
They had got through their preliminaries, and a little of the strain had gone from their faces; they were beginning to settle down. The applause that marked the end of their free-standing45 work broke the silence and warmed them and made the affair more human.
“What a charming collection,” said a dowager with lorgnettes who was sitting next her (now who owned that? she couldn’t be a parent) and turning to her confidentially46 asked: “Tell me, are they hand-picked?”
“I don’t understand,” murmured Lucy.
“I mean, are these all the Seniors there are?”
“You mean, are these just the best? Oh, no; that is the whole set.”
“Really? Quite wonderful. So attractive, too. Quite amazingly attractive.”
Did she think we had given the spotty ones half a crown to take themselves off for the afternoon, wondered Lucy.
But of course the dowager was right. Except for a string of two-year-olds in training, Lucy could think of nothing more attractive to mind and eye than that set of burnished47 and controlled young creatures busy dragging out the booms below her. The ropes rushed down from their looped position near the roof, the window-ladder came to vertical48, and over all three pieces of apparatus the Seniors swarmed49 in easy mastery. The applause as they put ropes and ladder away and turned the booms for balance was real and loud; the spectacular had its appeal.
Very different the place looked from that mysterious vault50 of greenish shadows that she had visited this morning. It was golden, and matter-of-fact, and alive; the reflected light from the sunlit roof showering down on the pale wood and making it glow. Seeing once more in her mind’s eye that dim empty space with the single waiting boom, she turned to see whose lot it might be to perform her balance on the spot where Rouse had been found. Who had the inner end of the right-hand front boom?
It was Innes.
“Go!” said Fr?ken; and eight young bodies somersaulted up on to the high booms. They sat there for a moment, and then rose in unison51 to a standing position, one foot in front of the other, facing each other in pairs at opposite ends of each boom.
Lucy hoped frantically52 that Innes was not going to faint. She was not merely pale; she was green. Her opposite number, Stewart, made a tentative beginning, but, seeing that Innes was not ready, waited for her. But Innes stood motionless, apparently53 unable to move a muscle. Stewart cast her a glance of wild appeal. Innes remained paralysed. Some wordless message passed between them, and Stewart went on with her exercise; achieving a perfection very commendable54 in the circumstances. All Innes’s faculties55 were concentrated on keeping her standing position on the boom long enough to be able to return to the floor with the rest, and not to ruin the whole exercise by collapsing56, or by jumping off. The dead silence and the concentration of interest made her failure painfully obvious; and puzzled sympathy settled on her as she stood there. Poor dear, they thought, she was feeling ill. Excitement, no doubt. Positively57 green, she was. Poor dear, poor dear.
Stewart had finished, and now waited, looking at Innes. Slowly they sank together to the boom, and sat down on it; turned together to lean face-forward on it; and somersaulted forward on to the ground.
And a great burst of applause greeted them. As always, the English were moved by a gallant58 failure where an easy success left them merely polite. They were expressing at once their sympathy and their admiration59. They had understood the strength of purpose that had kept her on the boom, paralysed as she was.
But the sympathy had not touched Innes. Lucy doubted if she actually heard the applause. She was living in some tortured world of her own, far beyond the reach of human consolation60. Lucy could hardly bear to look at her.
The bustle61 of the following items covered up her failure and put an end to drama. Innes took her place with the others and performed with mechanical perfection. When the final vaulting62 came, indeed, her performance was so remarkable63 that Lucy wondered if she were trying to break her neck publicly. The same idea, to judge by her expression, had crossed Fr?ken’s mind; but as long as what Innes did was controlled and perfect there was nothing she could do. And everything that Innes did, however breath-taking, was perfect and controlled. Because she seemed not to care, the wildest flights were possible to her. And when the students had finished their final go-as-you-please and stood breathless and beaming, a single file on an empty floor as they had begun, their guests stood up as one man and cheered.
Lucy, being at the end of the row and next the door, was first to leave the hall, and so was in time to see Innes’s apology to Fr?ken.
Fr?ken paused, and then moved on as if not interested, or not willing to listen.
But as she went she lifted a casual arm and gave Innes a light friendly pat on the shoulder.
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1
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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ken
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| n.视野，知识领域 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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alterations
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| n.改动( alteration的名词复数 )；更改；变化；改变 | |
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equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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lengthier
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| adj.长的，漫长的，啰嗦的( lengthy的比较级 ) | |
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12
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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13
gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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14
diagnosis
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| n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断 | |
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15
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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16
sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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17
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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18
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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19
opportunely
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| adv.恰好地，适时地 | |
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20
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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21
allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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23
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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24
nominally
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| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
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25
enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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filigree
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| n.金银丝做的工艺品；v.用金银细丝饰品装饰；用华而不实的饰品装饰；adj.金银细丝工艺的 | |
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28
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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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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32
suede
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| n.表面粗糙的软皮革 | |
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33
prodded
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| v.刺，戳( prod的过去式和过去分词 )；刺激；促使；（用手指或尖物）戳 | |
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gadgets
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| n.小机械，小器具（ gadget的名词复数 ） | |
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35
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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gushing
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| adj.迸出的；涌出的；喷出的；过分热情的v.喷，涌( gush的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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40
abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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pricking
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| 刺，刺痕，刺痛感 | |
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42
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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proprietorial
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| adj.所有（权）的 | |
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44
disciples
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| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
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45
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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46
confidentially
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| ad.秘密地，悄悄地 | |
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47
burnished
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| adj.抛光的，光亮的v.擦亮（金属等），磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 )；被擦亮，磨光 | |
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48
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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49
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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50
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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51
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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52
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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53
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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54
commendable
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| adj.值得称赞的 | |
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55
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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56
collapsing
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| 压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂 | |
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57
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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58
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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59
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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60
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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61
bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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62
vaulting
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| n.（天花板或屋顶的）拱形结构 | |
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63
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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