There is, beside, the “link-man,” a lank3, dark-faced, black-haired man, in a sable4 suit, with a link or torch in his hand. It usually only smoulders, with a deep red glow, as he visits his beat. The library is one of the rooms he sees to. Unlike “Lady Rachel,” as the maids called her, he is seen only, never heard. His steps fall noiseless as shadows on floor and carpet. The lurid5 glow of his smouldering torch imperfectly lights his figure and face, and, except when much perturbed6, his link never blazes. On those occasions, however, as he goes his rounds, he ever and anon whirls it round his head, and it bursts into a dismal7 flame. This is a fearful omen8, and always portends9 some direful crisis or calamity10. It occurs, however, only once or twice in a century.
I don’t know whether Madame had heard anything of these phenomena11; but she did report what very much frightened me and Mary Quince. She asked us who walked in the gallery on which her bed-room opened, making a rustling12 with her dress, and going down the stairs, and breathing long breaths here and there. Twice, she said, she had stood at her door in the dark, listening to these sounds, and once she called to know who it was. There was no answer, but the person plainly turned back, and hurried towards her with an unnatural13 speed, which made her jump within her door and shut it.
When first such tales are told, they excite the nerves of the young and the ignorant intensely. But the special effect, I have found, soon wears out, and the tale simply takes its place with the rest. So it was with Madame’s narrative14.
About a week after its relation, I had my experience of a similar sort. Mary Quince went down-stairs for a night-light, leaving me in bed, a candle burning in the room, and there, being tired, I fell asleep before her return. When I awoke the candle had been extinguished. But I heard a step softly approaching. I jumped up — quite forgetting the ghost, and thinking only of Mary Quince — and opened the door, expecting to see the light of her candle. Instead, all was dark, and near me I heard the fall of a bare foot on the oak floor. It was as if some one had stumbled. I said, “Mary,” but no answer came, only a rustling of clothes and a breathing at the other side of the gallery, which passed off towards the upper staircase. I turned into my room, freezing with horror, and clapt my door. The noise wakened Mary Quince, who had returned and gone to her bed half an hour before.
About a fortnight after this, Mary Quince, a very veracious15 spinster, reported to me, that having got up to fix the window, which was rattling16, at about four o’clock in the morning, she saw a light shining from the library window. She could swear to its being a strong light, streaming through the chinks of the shutter17, and moving, as no doubt the link was waved about his head by the angry “link-man.”
These strange occurrences helped, I think, just then to make me nervous, and prepared the way for the odd sort of ascendency which, through my sense of the mysterious and supernatural, that repulsive18 Frenchwoman was gradually, and it seemed without effort, establishing over me.
Some dark points of her character speedily emerged from the prismatic mist with which she had enveloped19 it.
Mrs. Rusk’s observation about the agreeability of new-comers I found to be true; for as Madame began to lose that character, her good-humour abated20 very perceptibly, and she began to show gleams of another sort of temper, that was lurid and dangerous.
Notwithstanding this, she was in the habit of always having her Bible open by her, and was austerely21 attentive22 at morning and evening services, and asked my father, with great humility23, to lend her some translations of Swedenborg’s books, which she laid much to heart.
When we went out for our walk, if the weather were bad we generally made our promenade24 up and down the broad terrace in front of the windows. Sullen25 and malign26 at times she used to look, and as suddenly she would pat me on the shoulder caressingly27, and smile with a grotesque28 benignity29, asking tenderly, “Are you fatigue30, ma chêre?” or “Are you cold-a, dear Maud?”
At first these abrupt31 transitions puzzled me, sometimes half frightened me, savouring, I fancied, of insanity32. The key, however, was accidentally supplied, and I found that these excesses of demonstrative affection were sure to supervene whenever my father’s face was visible through the library windows.
I did not know well what to make of this woman, whom I feared with a vein33 of superstitious34 dread35. I hated being alone with her after dusk in the school-room. She would sometimes sit for half an hour at a time, with her wide mouth drawn36 down at the corners, and a scowl37, looking into the fire. If she saw me looking at her, she would change all this on the instant, affect a sort of languor38, and lean her head upon her hand, and ultimately have recourse to her Bible. But I fancied she did not read, but pursued her own dark ruminations, for I observed that the open book might often lie for half an hour or more under her eyes and yet the leaf never turned.
I should have been glad to be assured that she prayed when on her knees, or read when that book was before her; I should have felt that she was more canny39 and human. As it was, those external pieties40 made a suspicion of a hollow contrast with realities that helped to scare me; yet it was but a suspicion — I could not be certain.
Our rector and the curate, with whom she was very gracious, and anxious about my collects and catechism, had an exalted41 opinion of her. In public places her affection for me was always demonstrative.
In like manner she contrived42 conferences with my father. She was always making excuses to consult him about my reading, and to confide43 in him her sufferings, as I learned, from my contumacy and temper. The fact is, I was altogether quiet and submissive. But I think she had a wish to reduce me to a state of the most abject44 bondage45. She had designs of domination and subversion46 regarding the entire household, I now believe, worthy47 of the evil spirit I sometimes fancied her.
My father beckoned48 me into the study one day, and said he —
“You ought not to give poor Madame so much pain. She is one of the few persons who take an interest in you; why should she have so often to complain of your ill-temper and disobedience? — why should she be compelled to ask my permission to punish you? Don’t be afraid, I won’t concede that. But in so kind a person it argues much. Affection I can’t command — respect and obedience49 I may — and I insist on your rendering50 both to Madame.”
“But sir,” I said, roused into courage by the gross injustice51 of the charge, “I have always done exactly as she bid me, and never said one disrespectful word to Madame.”
“I don’t think, child, you are the best judge of that. Go, and amend52.” And with a displeased53 look he pointed54 to the door. My heart swelled55 with the sense of wrong, and as I reached the door I turned to say another word, but I could not, and only burst into tears.
“There — don’t cry, little Maud — only let us do better for the future. There — there — there has been enough.”
And he kissed my forehead, and gently put me out and closed the door.
In the school-room I took courage, and with some warmth upbraided56 Madame.
“Wat wicked cheaile!” moaned Madame, demurely57. “Read aloud those three — yes, those three chapters of the Bible, my dear Maud.”
There was no special fitness in those particular chapters, and when they were ended she said in a sad tone —
“Now, dear, you must commit to memory this pretty priaire for umility of art.”
It was a long one, and in a state of profound irritation58 I got through the task.
Mrs. Rusk hated her. She said she stole wine and brandy whenever the opportunity offered — that she was always asking her for such stimulants59 and pretending pains in her stomach. Here, perhaps, there was exaggeration; but I knew it was true that I had been at different times despatched on that errand and pretext60 for brandy to Mrs. Rusk, who at last came to her bedside with pills and a mustard blister61 only, and was hated irrevocably ever after.
I felt all this was done to torture me. But a day is a long time to a child, and they forgive quickly. It was always with a sense of danger that I heard Madame say she must go and see Monsieur Ruthyn in the library, and I think a jealousy62 of her growing influence was an ingredient in the detestation in which honest Mrs. Rusk held her.
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1
rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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3
lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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sable
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| n.黑貂；adj.黑色的 | |
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lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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omen
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| n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示 | |
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portends
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| v.预示( portend的第三人称单数 )；预兆；给…以警告；预告 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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veracious
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| adj.诚实可靠的 | |
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rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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shutter
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| n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置 | |
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repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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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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20
abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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austerely
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| adv.严格地，朴质地 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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malign
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| adj.有害的；恶性的；恶意的；v.诽谤，诬蔑 | |
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caressingly
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| 爱抚地，亲切地 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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benignity
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| n.仁慈 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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32
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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33
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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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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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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scowl
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| vi.(at)生气地皱眉，沉下脸，怒视；n.怒容 | |
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languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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canny
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| adj.谨慎的，节俭的 | |
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40
pieties
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| 虔诚，虔敬( piety的名词复数 ) | |
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41
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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42
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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43
confide
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| v.向某人吐露秘密 | |
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abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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45
bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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subversion
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| n.颠覆，破坏 | |
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47
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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48
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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50
rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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51
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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52
amend
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| vt.修改，修订，改进；n.[pl.]赔罪，赔偿 | |
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53
displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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54
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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55
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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56
upbraided
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| v.责备，申斥，谴责( upbraid的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57
demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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58
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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59
stimulants
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| n.兴奋剂( stimulant的名词复数 )；含兴奋剂的饮料；刺激物；激励物 | |
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60
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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61
blister
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| n.水疱；(油漆等的)气泡；v.(使)起泡 | |
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62
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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