“This is delicious, Dinny. Clare looks rather yellow. It isn’t a baby, is it?”
“No, dear.”
“Pity! When we were in Ceylon everyone was havin’ babies. The baby elephants — so enticin’! In this room — we always played a game of feedin’ the Catholic priest with a basket from the roof. Your father used to be on the roof, and I was the priest. There was never anythin’ worth eatin’ in the basket. Your Aunt Wilmet was stationed in a tree to call ‘Cooee’ in case of Protestants.”
“‘Cooee’ was a bit premature4, Aunt Em. Australia wasn’t discovered under Elizabeth.”
“No. Lawrence says the Protestants at that time were devils. So were the Catholics. So were the Mohammedans.”
Dinny winced5 and veiled her face with a corset belt.
“Where shall I put these undies?”
“So long as I see where. Don’t stoop too much! They were all devils then. Animals were treated terribly. Did Clare enjoy Ceylon?”
Dinny stood up with an armful of underthings.
“Not much.”
“Why not? Liver?”
“Auntie, you won’t say anything, except to Uncle Lawrence and Michael, if I tell you? There’s been a split.”
Lady Mont buried her nose in the verbena bag.
“Oh!” she said: “His mother looked it. D’you believe in ‘like mother like son’?”
“Not too much.”
“I always thought seventeen years’ difference too much, Dinny. Lawrence says people say: ‘Oh! Jerry Corven!’ and then don’t say. So, what was it?”
Dinny bent6 over a drawer and arranged the things.
“I can’t go into it, but he seems to be quite a beast.”
Lady Mont tipped the bag into the drawer, murmuring: “Poor dear Clare!”
“So, Auntie, she’s just to be home for her health.”
Lady Mont put her nose into a bowl of flowers. “Boswell and Johnson call them ‘God-eat-yers.’ They don’t smell. What disease could Clare have — nerves?”
“Climate, Auntie.”
“So many Anglo-Indians go back and back, Dinny.”
“I know, but for the present. Something’s bound to happen. So not even to Fleur, please.”
“Fleur will know whether I tell her or not. She’s like that. Has Clare a young man?”
“Oh! no!” And Dinny lifted a puce-coloured wrapper, recalling the expression of the young man when he was saying good-bye.
“On board ship,” murmured her Aunt dubiously7.
Dinny changed the subject.
“Is Uncle Lawrence very political just now?”
“Yes, so borin’. Things always sound so when you talk about them. Is your candidate here safe, like Michael?”
“He’s new, but he’ll get in.”
“Married?”
“No.”
Lady Mont inclined her head slightly to one side and scrutinised her niece from under half-drooped8 lids.
Dinny took the last thing out of the trunk. It was a pot of antiphlogistine.
“That’s not British, Auntie.”
“For the chest. Delia puts it in. I’ve had it, years. Have you talked to your candidate in private?”
“I have.”
“How old is he?”
“Rather under forty, I should say.”
“Does he do anything besides?”
“He’s a K.C.”
“What’s his name?”
“Dornford.”
“There were Dornfords when I was a girl. Where was that? Ah! Algeciras! He was a Colonel at Gibraltar.”
“That would be his father, I expect.”
“Then he hasn’t any money.”
“Only what he makes at the Bar.”
“But they don’t — under forty.”
“He does, I think.”
“Energetic?”
“Very.”
“Fair?”
“No, darkish. He won the Bar point-to-point this year. Now, darling, will you have a fire at once, or last till dressing9 time?”
“Last. I want to see the baby.”
“All right, he ought to be just in from his pram10. Your bathroom’s at the foot of these stairs, and I’ll wait for you in the nursery.”
The nursery was the same mullion-windowed, low-pitched room as that wherein Dinny and Aunt Em herself had received their first impressions of that jigsaw11 puzzle called life; and in it the baby was practising his totter12. Whether he would be a Charwell or a Tasburgh when he grew up seemed as yet uncertain. His nurse, his aunt and his great-aunt stood, in triangular13 admiration14, for him to fall alternatively into their outstretched hands.
“He doesn’t crow,” said Dinny.
“He does in the morning, Miss.”
“Down he goes!” said Lady Mont.
“Don’t cry, darling!”
“He never cries, Miss.”
“That’s Jean. Clare and I cried a lot till we were about seven.”
“I cried till I was fifteen,” said Lady Mont, “and I began again when I was forty-five. Did you cry, Nurse?”
“We were too large a family, my lady. There wasn’t room like.”
“Nanny had a lovely mother — five sisters as good as gold.”
The nurse’s fresh cheeks grew fresher; she drooped her chin, smiling, shy as a little girl.
“Take care of bow legs!” said Lady Mont: “That’s enough totterin’.”
The nurse, retrieving15 the still persistent16 baby, placed him in his cot, whence he frowned solemnly at Dinny, who said:
“Mother’s devoted17 to him. She thinks he’ll be like Hubert.”
Lady Mont made the sound supposed to attract babies.
“When does Jean come home again?”
“Not till Hubert’s next long leave.”
Lady Mont’s gaze rested on her niece.
“The rector says Alan has another year on the China station.”
Dinny, dangling18 a bead19 chain over the baby, paid no attention. Never since the summer evening last year, when she came back home after Wilfrid’s flight, had she made or suffered any allusion20 to her feelings. No one, perhaps not even she herself, knew whether she was heart-whole once more. It was, indeed, as if she had no heart. So long, so earnestly had she resisted its aching, that it had slunk away into the shadows of her inmost being, where even she could hardly feel it beating.
“What would you like to do now, Auntie? He has to go to sleep.”
“Take me round the garden.”
They went down and out on to the terrace.
“Oh!” said Dinny, with dismay, “Glover has gone and beaten the leaves off the little mulberry. They were so lovely, shivering on the tree and coming off in a ring on the grass. Really gardeners have no sense of beauty.”
“They don’t like sweepin’. Where’s the cedar21 I planted when I was five?”
They came on it round the corner of an old wall, a spreading youngster of nearly sixty, with flattening22 boughs23 gilded24 by the level sunlight.
“I should like to be buried under it, Dinny. Only I suppose they won’t. There’ll be something stuffy25.”
“I mean to be burnt and scattered26. Look at them ploughing in that field. I do love horses moving slowly against a skyline of trees.”
“‘The lowin’ kine,’” said Lady Mont irrelevantly27.
A faint clink came from a sheepfold to the East.
“Listen, Auntie!”
Lady Mont thrust her arm within her niece’s.
“I’ve often thought,” she said, “that I should like to be a goat.”
“Not in England, tied to a stake and grazing in a mangy little circle.”
“No, with a bell on a mountain. A he-goat, I think, so as not to be milked.”
“Come and see our new cutting bed, Auntie. There’s nothing now, of course, but dahlias, godetias, chrysanthemums28, Michaelmas daisies, and a few pentstemons and cosmias.”
“Dinny,” said Lady Mont, from among the dahlias, “about Clare? They say divorce is very easy now.”
“Until you try for it, I expect.”
“There’s desertion and that.”
“But you have to BE deserted29.”
“Well, you said he made her.”
“It’s not the same thing, dear.”
“Lawyers are so fussy30 about the law. There was that magistrate31 with the long nose in Hubert’s extradition32.”
“Oh! but he turned out quite human.”
“How was that?”
“Telling the Home Secretary that Hubert was speaking the truth.”
“A dreadful business,” murmured Lady Mont, “but nice to remember.”
“It had a happy ending,” said Dinny quickly.
Lady Mont stood, ruefully regarding her.
And Dinny, staring at the flowers, said suddenly: “Aunt Em, somehow there must be a happy ending for Clare.”
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收听单词发音
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1
consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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2
sniffing
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| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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3
unpacked
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| v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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4
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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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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6
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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7
dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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8
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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9
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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10
pram
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| n.婴儿车，童车 | |
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11
jigsaw
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| n.缕花锯，竖锯，拼图游戏；vt.用竖锯锯，使互相交错搭接 | |
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12
totter
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| v.蹒跚， 摇摇欲坠；n.蹒跚的步子 | |
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13
triangular
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| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
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14
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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15
retrieving
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| n.检索（过程），取还v.取回( retrieve的现在分词 )；恢复；寻回；检索（储存的信息） | |
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16
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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17
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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18
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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19
bead
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| n.念珠；(pl.)珠子项链；水珠 | |
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20
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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21
cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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22
flattening
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| n. 修平 动词flatten的现在分词 | |
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23
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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24
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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25
stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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26
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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27
irrelevantly
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| adv.不恰当地，不合适地；不相关地 | |
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28
chrysanthemums
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| n.菊花( chrysanthemum的名词复数 ) | |
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29
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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30
fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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31
magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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32
extradition
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| n.引渡（逃犯） | |
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