“The deuce!” said Lord Welter; “that’s lucky. I’ll get him to break it to the governor.”
The venerable nobleman was very much amused by the misfortunes of these ingenuous1 youths, and undertook the commission with great good nature. But, when he heard the cause of the mishap2, he altered his tone considerably3, and took on himself to give the young men what was for him a severe lecture. He was sorry this had come out of a drunken riot; he wished it ——— which, though bad enough, did not carry the disgrace with it that the other did. Let them take the advice of an old fellow who had lived in the world, ay, and moved with the world, for above eighty years, and take care not to be marked, even among their own set, as drinking men. In his day, he allowed, drinking was entirely4 de rigueur; and indeed nothing could be more proper and correct than the whole tiling they had just described to him, if it had happened fifty years ago. But now a drunken row was an anachronism. Nobody drank now. He had made a point of watching the best young fellows, and none of them drank. He made; a point of taking the time from the rising young fellows, as every one ought to, who wished to go with the world. In his day, for instance, it was the custom to talk with considerable freedom on sacred subjects, and he himself had been somewhat notorious for that sort of thing; but look at him now: he conformed with the times, and went to church. Every one went to church now. Let him call their attention to the fact that a great improvement had taken place in public morals of late years.
So the good-natured old heathen gave them what, I daresay, he thought was the best of advice. He is gone now to see what his system of morality is worth. I am very shy of judging him, or the men of his time. It gives me great pain to hear the men of the revolutionary era spoken of flippantly. The time was so exceptional. The men of that time were a race of giants. One wonders how the world got through that time at all. Six hundred millions of treasure spent by Britain alone! How mam millions of lives lost none may guess. What wonder if there were hellfire clubs and all kinds of monstrosities. Would any of the present generation have attended the fete of the goddess of reason, if they had lived at that time, I wonder? Of course they wouldn’t.
Charles went alone to the poultry-yard; but no one was there except the head keeper, who was administering medicine to a cock, whose appearance was indictable — that is to say, if the laws against cock-fighting were enforced. Lady Ascot had gone in; so Charles went in too, and went upstairs to his aunt’s room.
One of the old lady’s last fancies was sitting in the dark, or in a gloom so profound as to approach to darkness. So Charles, passing out of a light corridor, and shutting the door behind him, found himself unable to see his hand before him. Confident, however, of his knowledge of localities, he advanced with such success that he immediately fell crashing headlong over an ottoman; and in his descent, imagining that he was falling into a pit or gulf7 of unknown depth, uttered a wild cry of alarm. Whereupon the voice of Lady Ascot from close by answered, “Come in,” as if she thought she’d heard somebody knock.
“Come up, would be more appropriate, aunt,” said Charles. “Why do you sit in the dark? I’ve killed myself, I believe.”
“Is that you, Charles?” said she. “What brings you over? My dear, I am delighted. Open a bit of the window, Charles, and let me see you.”
Charles did as he was desired; and, as the strong light from without fell upon him, the old lady gave a deep sigh.
“Ah, dear, so like poor dear Petre about the eyes. There never was a handsome Ravenshoe since him, and here never will be another. You were quite tolerable as a boy, my dear; but you’ve got very coarse, very coarse and plain indeed. Poor Petre!”
“You’re more unlucky in the light than you were in the darkness, Charles,” said a brisk, clear, well-modulated voice from behind the old lady. “Grandma seems in one of her knock-me-down moods today. She had just told me that I was an insignificant8 chit, when you made your graceful9 and noiseless entrance, and saved me anything further.”
If Adelaide had been looking at Charles when she spoke5, instead of at her work, she would have seen the start which he gave when he heard her voice. As it was, she saw nothing of it; and Charles, instantly recovering himself, said in the most nonchalant voice possible:
“Hallo, are you here? How do you contrive10 to work in the dark?”
“It is not dark to any one with eyes,” was the curt11 reply. “I can see to read.”
Here Lady Ascot said that, if she had called Adelaide a chit, it was because she had set up her opinion against that of such a man as Dr. Going; that Adelaide was a good and dutiful girl to her; that she was a very old woman, and perhaps shouldn’t live to see the finish of next year; and that her opinion still was that Charles was very plain and coarse, and she was sorry she couldn’t alter it.
Adelaide came rapidly up and kissed her, and then went and stood in the light beside Charles.
She had grown into a superb blonde beauty. From her rich brown crepe hair to her exquisite12 little foot, she was a model of grace. The nose was delicately aquiline13, and the mouth receded14 slightly, while the chin was as slightly prominent; the eyes were brilliant, and were concentrated on their object in a moment; and the eyebrows15 surmounted16 them in a delicately but distinctly marked curve. A beauty she was, such as one seldom sees; and Charles, looking on her, felt that he loved her more madly than ever, and that he would die sooner than let her know it.
“Well, Charles,” she said, “you don’t seem overjoyed to see me.”
“A man can’t look joyous17 with broken shins, my dear Adelaide. Aunt, I’ve got some bad news for you. I am in trouble.”
“Oh dear,” said the old lady, “and what is the matter now? Something about a woman, I suppose. You Ravenshoes are always — ”
“No, no, aunt, Nothing of the kind. Adelaide, don’t go, pray; you will lose such a capital laugh. I’ve got rusticated18, aunt.”
“That is very comical, I dare say,” said Adelaide, in a low voice; “but I don’t see the joke.”
“I thought you would have had a laugh at me, perhaps,” said Charles; “it is rather a favourite amusement of yours.”
“What, in the name of goodness, makes you so disagreeable and cross, today. Charles? You were never so before, when anything happened. I am sure I am very sorry for your misfortune, though I really don’t know its extent. Is it a very serious thing?”
“Serious, very. I don’t much like going home. Welter is in the same scrape; who is to tell her?”
“This is the way,” said Adelaide, “I’ll show you how to manage her.”
All this was carried on in a low tone, and very rapidly. The old lady had just begun in a loud, querulous, scolding voice to Charles, when Adelaide interrupted her with —
“I say, grandma, Welter is rusticated too.”
Adelaide good-naturedly said this to lead the old lady’s wrath19 from Charles, and throw it partly on to her grandson; but, however good her intentions, the execution of them was unsuccessful. The old lady fell to scolding Charles; accusing him of being the cause of the whole mishap, of leading Welter into every mischief20, and stating her opinion that he was an innocent and exemplary youth, with the fault only of being too easily led away. Charles escaped as soon as he could, and was followed by Adelaide.
“This is not true, is it?” she said. “It is not your fault?”
“My fault, partly, of course. But Welter would have been sent down before, if it hadn’t been for me. He got me into the scrape this time. He mustn’t go back there. You must’n’t let him go back.”
“I let him go back, forsooth! What on earth can I ave to do with his lordship’s movements?” she said bitterly. “Do you know who you are talking to? — a beggarly orphan21.”
“Hush: don’t talk like that, Adelaide. Your power in this house is very great. The power of the only sound head in the house. You could stop anything you liked from happening.”
They had come together at a conservatory22 door; and she put her back against it, and held up her hand to bespeak23 his attention more particularly.
“I wish it was true, Charles; but it isn’t. No one has any power over Lord Ascot. Is Welter much in debt?”
“I should say, a great deal,” was Charles’s reply. “I think I ought to tell you. You may help him to break it to them.”
“Ay, he always comes to me for that sort of thing. Always did from a child. I’ll tell you what, Charles, there’s trouble coming or come on this house. Lord Ascot came home from Chester looking like death; they say he lost fearfully both there and at Newmarket. He came home quite late, and went up to grandma; and there was a dreadful scene. She hasn’t been herself since. Another blow like it will kill her. I suspect my lord’s bare existence depends on this colt winning the Derby. Come and see it gallop24,” she added, suddenly throwing her flashing eyes upon his, and speaking with an animation25 and rapidity very different from the cold stern voice in which she had been telling the amily troubles. u Come, and let us have some oxygen-I have not spoken to a man for a month. I have been leading a life like a nun’s; no, worse than any nun’s; for I have been bothered and humiliated26 by — ah! such wretched trivialities, Go and order horses. I will join you directly.”
So she dashed away and left him, and he hurried to the yard. Scarcely were the horses ready when she was back again, with the same stern, cold expression on her face, now more marked, perhaps, from the effect of the masculine habit she wore. She was a consummate27 horsewoman, and rode the furious black Irish mare28, which was brought out for her, with ease and self-possession, seeming to enjoy the rearing and plunging29 of the sour-tempered brute30 far more than Charles, her companion, did, who would rather have seen her on a quieter horse.
A sweeping31 gallop under the noble old trees, through a deep valley, and past a herd32 of deer, which scudded33 away through the thick-strewn leaves, brought them to the great stables, a large building at the edge of the park, close to the downs. Twenty or thirty long-legged elegant, nonchalant-looking animals, covered to the tips of their ears with cloths, and ridden each by a queer-looking brown-faced lad, were in the act of returning from their afternoon exercise. These Adelaide’s mare, “Molly Asthore,” charged and dispersed34 like a flock of sheep; and then, Adelaide pointing with her whip to the downs, hurried past the stables towards a group they saw a little distance off.
There were only four people — Lord Ascot, the stud groom35, and two lads. Adelaide was correctly informed; they were going to gallop the Voltigeur colt (since called Haphazard), and the cloths were now coming off him. Lord Ascot and the stud groom mounted their horses, and joined our pair, who were riding slowly along the measured mile the way the horse was to come.
Lord Ascot looked very pale and worn; he gave Charles a kindly36 greeting, and made a joke with Adelaide; but his hands fidgeted with his reins37, and he kept turning back towards the horse they had left, wondering impatiently what was keeping the boy. At last-they saw the beautiful beast shake his ‘head, give two or three playful plunges38, and then come striding rapidly towards them, over the short, springy turf.
Then they turned, and rode full speed: soon they heard the mighty39 hollow-sounding hoofs40 behind, that came rapidly towards them, devouring41 space. Then the colt rushed by them in his pride, with his chin on his chest, hard held, and his hind6 feet coming forward under his girth every stride, and casting the turf behind him in showers. Then Adelaide’s horse, after a few mad plunges, bolted, overtook the colt, and actually raced him for a few hundred yards; then the colt was pulled up on a breezy hill, and they all stood a little together talking and congratulating one another on the beauty of the horse.
Charles and Adelaide rode away together over the downs, intending to make a little detour42, and so lengthen43 heir ride. They had had no chance of conversation since they parted at the conservatory door, and they took it np nearly where they had left it. Adelaide began, and, I may say. vent44 on, too, as she had most of the talking.
“I should like to be a duchess; then I should be mistress of the only thing I am afraid of.”
“What is that?”
“Poverty,” said she; “that is my only terror, and that is my inevitable45 fate.”
“I should have thought, Adelaide, that you were too high-spirited to care for that, or anything.”
“Ah, you don’t know; all my relations are poor. I know what it is; I know what it would be for a beauty like me.”
“You will never be poor or friendless while Lady Ascot lives.”
“How long will that be? My home now depends very much on that horse,; oh, if I were only a man, I would welcome poverty; it would force me to action.”
Charles blushed. Not many days before, Marston and he had had a battle royal, in which the former had said, that the only hope for Charles was that he should go two or three times without his dinner, and be made to earn it, and that as long as he had a “mag ” to bless himself with, he would always be a lazy, useless humbug46; and now here was a young lady uttering the same atrocious sentiments. He called attention to the prospect47.
Three hundred feet below them, Father Thames was inding along under the downs and yellow woodlands, past chalk quarry48 and grey farmhouse49, blood-red beneath the setting sun; a soft, rich, autumnal haze50 was over everything; the smoke from the distant village hung like a curtain of pearl across the valley; and the long, straight, dark wood that crowned the high grey wold, was bathed in a dim purple mist, on its darkest side; and to perfect the air of dreamy stillness, some distant bells sent their golden sound floating on the peaceful air. It was a quiet day in the old age of the year; and its peace seemed to make itself felt on these two wild young birds; for they were silent more than half the way home; and then Charles said, in a low voice —
“Dear Adelaide, I hope you have chosen aright. The time will come when you will have to make a more important decision than any you have made yet. At one time in a man’s or woman’s life, they say, there is a choice between good and evil. In God’s name, think before you make it.”
“Charles,” she said, in a low and disturbed voice, “if a conjuror51 were to offer to show you your face in a glass, as it would be ten years hence, should you have courage to look?”
“1 suppose so; would not you?”
“Oh, no, no, no! How do you know what horrid52 thing would look at you, and scare you to death? Ten years hence; where shall we be then?”
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1
ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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mishap
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| n.不幸的事，不幸；灾祸 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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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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hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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8
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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curt
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| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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rusticated
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| v.罚（大学生）暂时停学离校( rusticate的过去式和过去分词 )；在农村定居 | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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conservatory
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| n.温室，音乐学院；adj.保存性的，有保存力的 | |
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bespeak
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| v.预定；预先请求 | |
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gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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29
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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scudded
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| v.（尤指船、舰或云彩）笔直、高速而平稳地移动( scud的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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38
plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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41
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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42
detour
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| n.绕行的路，迂回路；v.迂回，绕道 | |
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43
lengthen
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| vt.使伸长，延长 | |
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44
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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45
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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46
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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47
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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48
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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49
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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50
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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51
conjuror
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| n.魔术师，变戏法者 | |
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52
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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