Just at this moment they became aware of a timid little tapping which had been going on at the window during the latter part of this conference, and looking up, the attorney and the vicar saw ‘little Fairy’s’ violet eyes peering under his light hair, with its mild, golden shadow, and the odd, sensitive smile, at once shy and arch; his cheeks were wet with tears, and his pretty little nose red, though he was smiling; and he drew his face aside among the jessamine, when he saw the gaunt attorney directing his patronising smile upon him.
‘I beg pardon,’ said the vicar, rising with a sudden smile, and going to the window. ‘It is my little man. Fairy! Fairy! What has brought you here; my little man?’
Fairy glanced, still smiling, but very shamefacedly at the grand attorney, and in his little fist he held a pair of rather seedy gloves to the window pane1.
‘So I did. I protest I forgot my gloves. Thank you, little man. Who is with you? Oh! I see. That is right.’
The maid ducked a short courtesy.
‘Indeed, Sir, please, Master Fairy was raising the roof (a nursery phrase, which implied indescribable bellowing), and as naughty as could be, until missis allowed him to come after you.’
‘Oh! my little man, you must not do that. Ask nicely, you know; always quietly, like a little gentleman.’
‘But, oh! Wapsie, your hands would be cold;’ and he held the gloves to him against the glass.
‘Well, darling, thank you; you are a kind little man, and I’ll be with you in a moment,’ said the vicar, smiling very lovingly on his naughty little man.
‘Mr. Larkin,’ said he, turning very gratefully to the attorney ‘you can lay this Christian2 comfort to your kind heart, that you have made mine a hundredfold lighter3 since I entered this blessed room; indeed, you have lifted a mountain from it by the timely proffer4 of your invaluable5 assistance.’
Again the attorney waved off, with a benignant and humble6 smile, rather oppressive to see, all idea of obligation, and accompanied his grateful client to the glass door of his little porch, where Fairy was already awaiting him with the gloves in his hand.
‘I do believe,’ said the good vicar, as he walked down what Mr. Larkin called ‘the approach,’ and looking up with irrepressible gratitude7 to the blue sky and the white clouds sailing over his head, ‘if it be not presumption8, I must believe that I have been directed hither — yes, darling, yes, my hands are warm’ (this was addressed to little Fairy, who was clamouring for information on the point, and clinging to his arm as he capered9 by his side). ‘What immense relief;’ and he murmured another thanksgiving, and then quite hilariously10 —
‘If little man would like to come with his Wapsie, we’ll take such a nice little walk together, and we’ll go and see poor Widow Maddock; and we’ll buy three muffins on our way home, for a feast this evening; and we’ll look at the pictures in the old French “Josephus;” and Mamma and I will tell stories; and I have a halfpenny to buy apples for little Fairy.’
The attorney stood at his window with a shadow on his face, and his small eyes a little contracted and snakelike, following the slim figure of the threadbare vicar and his golden-haired, dancing little comrade; and then he mounted a chair, and took down successively four of his japanned boxes; two of them, in yellow letters, bore respectively the label ‘Brandon, No. 1,’ and ‘No. 2;’ the other ‘Wylder, No. 1,’ and ‘No. 2.’
He opened the ‘Wylder’ box first, and glanced through a neat little ‘statement of title,’ prepared for counsel when draughting the deed of settlement for the marriage which was never to take place.
‘The limitations, let me see, is not there something that one might be safe in advancing a trifle upon — eh? — h’m — yes.’
And, with his lip in his finger and thumb, he conned11 over those remainders and reversions with a skilled and rapid eye.
Rachel Lake was glad to see the slender and slightly-stooped figure of the vicar standing12 that morning — his bright little boy by the hand — in the wicket of the tiny flower-garden of Redman’s Farm. She went out quickly to greet him. The sick man likes the sound of his kind doctor’s step on the stairs; and, be his skill much or little, trusts in him, and will even joke a little asthmatic joke, and smile a feeble hectic13 smile about his ailments14, when he is present.
So they fell into discourse15 among the autumnal flowers and withered16 leaves; and, as the day was still and genial17, they remained standing in the garden; and away went busy little ‘Fairy,’ smiling and chatting with Margery, to see the hens and chickens in the yard.
The physician, after a while, finds the leading features of most cases pretty much alike. He knows when inflammation may be expected and fever will supervene; he is not surprised if the patient’s mind wanders a little at times; expects the period of prostration18 and the return of appetite; and has his measures and his palliatives ready for each successive phase of sickness and recovery. In like manner, too, the good and skilful19 parson comes by experience to know the signs and stages of the moral ailments and recoveries which some of them know how so tenderly and so wisely to care for. They, too, have ready — having often proved their consolatory20 efficacy — their febrifuges and their tonics21, culled22 from that tree of life whose ‘leaves are for the healing of the nations.’
Poor Rachel’s hours were dark, and life had grown in some sort terrible, and death seemed now so real and near — aye, quite a fact — and, somehow, not unfriendly. But, oh! the immense futurity beyond, that could not be shirked, to which she was certainly going.
Death, and sleep so welcome! But, oh! that stupendous LIFE EVERLASTING23, now first unveiled. She could only close her eyes and wring24 her hands. Oh! for some friendly voice and hand to stay her through the Valley of the Shadow of Death!
They talked a long while — Rachel chiefly a listener, and often quietly weeping; and, at last, a very kindly25 parting, and a promise from the simple and gentle vicar that he would often look in at Redman’s Farm.
She watched his retreating figure as he and little Fairy walked down the tenebrose road to Gylingden, following them with a dismal26 gaze, as a benighted27 and wounded wayfarer28 in that ‘Valley’ would the pale lamp’s disappearing that had for a few minutes, in a friendly hand, shone over his dreadful darkness.
And when, in fitful reveries, fancy turned for a moment to an earthly past and future, all there was a blank — the past saddened, the future bleak29. She did not know, or even suspect, that she had been living in an aerial castle, and worshipping an unreal image, until, on a sudden, all was revealed in that chance gleam of cruel lightning, the line in that letter, which she read so often, spelled over, and puzzled over so industriously30, though it was clear enough. How noble, how good, how bright and true, was that hero of her unconscious romance.
Well, no one else suspected that incipient31 madness — that was something; and brave Rachel would quite master it. Happy she had discovered it so soon. Besides, it was, even if Chelford were at her feet, a wild impossibility now; and it was well, though despair were in the pang32, that she had, at last, quite explained this to herself.
As Rachel stood in her little garden, on the spot where she had bidden farewell to the vicar, she was roused from her vague and dismal reverie by the sound of a carriage close at hand. She had just time to see that it was a brougham, and to recognise the Brandon liveries, when it drew up at the garden wicket, and Dorcas called to her from the open window.
‘I’m come, Rachel, expressly to take you with me; and I won’t be denied.’
‘You are very good, Dorcas; thank you, dear, very much; but I am not very well, and a very dull companion to-day.’
‘You think I am going to bore you with visits. No such thing, I assure you. I have taken a fancy to walk on the common, that is all — a kind of longing33; and you must come with me; quite to ourselves, you and I. You won’t refuse me, darling; I know you’ll come.’
Well, Rachel did go. And away they drove through the quiet town of Gylingden together, and through the short street on the right, and so upon the still quieter common.
This plain of green turf broke gradually into a heath; and an irregular screen of timber and underwood divided the common of Gylingden in sylvan34 fashion from the moor35. The wood passed, Dorcas stopped the carriage, and the two young ladies descended36. It was a sunny day, and the air still; and the open heath contrasted pleasantly with the sombre and confined scenery of Redman’s Dell; and altogether Rachel was glad now that she had made the effort, and come with her cousin.
‘It was good of you to come, Rachel,’ said Miss Brandon; ‘and you look tired; but you sha’n’t speak more than you like; and I’ll tell you all the news. Chelford is just returned from Brighton; he arrived this morning; and he and Lady Chelford will stay for the Hunt Ball. I made it a point. And he called at Hockley, on his way back, to see Sir Julius. Do you know him?’
‘Sir Julius Hockley? No — I’ve heard of him only.’
‘Well, they say he is wasting his property very fast; and I think him every way very nearly a fool; but Chelford wanted to see him about Mr. Wylder. Mark Wylder, you know, of course, has turned up again in England. His letter to Chelford, six weeks ago, was from Boulogne; but his last was from Brighton; and Sir Julius Hockley witnessed — I think they call it — that letter of attorney which Mark sent about a week since to Mr. Larkin; and Chelford, who is most anxious to trace Mark Wylder, having to surrender — I think they call it — a “trust” is not it — or something — I really don’t understand these things — to him, and not being able to find out his address, Mr. Larkin wrote to Sir Julius, whom Chelford did not find at home, to ask him for a description of Mark, to ascertain37 whether he had disguised himself; and Sir Julius wrote to Chelford such an absurd description of poor Mark, in doggrel rhyme — so like — his odd walk, his great whiskers, and everything. Chelford does not like personalities38, but he could not help laughing. Are you ill, darling?’
Though she was walking on beside her companion, Rachel looked on the point of fainting.
‘My darling, you must sit down; you do look very ill. I forgot my promise about Mark Wylder. How stupid I have been! and perhaps I have distressed39 you.’
‘No, Dorcas, I am pretty well; but I have been ill, and I am a little tired; and, Dorcas, I don’t deny it, I am amazed, you tell me such things. That letter of attorney, or whatever it is, must not be acted upon. It is incredible. It is all horrible wickedness. Mark Wylder’s fate is dreadful, and Stanley is the mover of all this. Oh! Dorcas, darling, I wish I could tell you everything. Some day I may be — I am sick and terrified.’
They had sat down, by this time, side by side, on the crisp bank. Each lady looked down, the one in suffering, the other in thought.
‘You are better, darling; are not you better?’ said Dorcas, laying her hand on Rachel’s, and looking on her with a melancholy40 gaze.
‘Yes, dear, better — very well’— answered Rachel, looking up but without an answering glance at her cousin.
‘You blame your brother, Rachel, in this affair.’
‘Did I? Well — maybe — yes, he is to blame — the miserable41 man — whom I hate to think of, and yet am always thinking of — Stanley well knows is not in a state to do it.’
‘Don’t you think, Rachel, remembering what I have confided42 to you, that you might be franker with me in this?’
‘Oh, Dorcas! don’t misunderstand me. If the secret were all my own — Heaven knows, hateful as it is, how boldly I would risk all, and throw myself on your fidelity43 or your mercy — I know not how you might view it; but it is different, Dorcas, at least for the present. You know me — you know how I hate secrets; but this is not mine — only in part — that is, I dare not tell it — but may be soon free — and to us all, dear Dorcas, a woful, woful, day will it be.’
‘I made you a promise, Rachel,’ said her beautiful cousin, gravely, and a little coldly and sadly, too; ‘I will never break it again — it was thoughtless. Let us each try to forget that there is anything hidden between us.’
‘If ever the time comes, dear Dorcas, when I may tell it to you, I don’t know whether you will bless or hate me for having kept it so well; at all events, I think you’ll pity me, and at last understand your miserable cousin.’
‘I said before, Rachel, that I liked you. You are one of us, Rachel. You are beautiful, wayward, and daring, and one way or another, misfortune always waylays44 us; and I have, I know it, calamity45 before me. Death comes to other women in its accustomed way; but we have a double death. There is not a beautiful portrait in Brandon that has not a sad and true story. Early death of the frail46 and fair tenement47 of clay — but a still earlier death of happiness. Come, Rachel, shall we escape from the spell and the destiny into solitude48? What do you think of my old plan of the valleys and lakes of Wales? a pretty foreign tongue spoken round us, and no one but ourselves to commune with, and books, and music. It is not, Radie, altogether jest. I sometimes yearn49 for it, as they say foreign girls do for convent life.’
‘Poor Dorcas,’ said Rachel, very softly, fixing her eyes upon her with a look of inexpressible sadness and pity.
‘Rachel,’ said Dorcas, ‘I am a changeable being — violent, self-willed. My fate may be quite a different one from that which I suppose or you imagine. I may yet have to retract50 my secret.’
‘Oh! would it were so — would to Heaven it were so.’
‘Suppose, Rachel, that I had been deceiving you — perhaps deceiving myself — time will show.’
There was a wild smile on beautiful Dorcas’s face as she said this, which faded soon into the proud serenity51 that was its usual character.
‘Oh! Dorcas, if your good angel is near, listen to his warnings.’
‘We have no good angels, my poor Rachel: what modern necromancers, conversing52 with tables, call “mocking spirits,” have always usurped53 their place with us: singing in our drowsy54 ears, like Ariel — visiting our reveries like angels of light — being really our evil genii — ah, yes!’
‘Dorcas, dear,’ said Rachel, after both had been silent for a time, speaking suddenly, and with a look of pale and keen entreaty55 —‘Beware of Stanley — oh! beware, beware. I think I am beginning to grow afraid of him myself.’
Dorcas was not given to sighing — but she sighed — gazing sadly across the wide, bleak moor, with her proud, apathetic56 look, which seemed passively to defy futurity — and then, for awhile, they were silent.
She turned, and caressingly57 smoothed the golden tresses over Rachel’s frank, white forehead, and kissed them as she did so.
‘You are better, darling; you are rested?’ she said.
‘Yes, dear Dorcas,’ and she kissed the slender hand that smoothed her hair.
Each understood that the conversation on that theme was ended, and somehow each was relieved.
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1
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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proffer
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| v.献出，赠送；n.提议，建议 | |
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invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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7
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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presumption
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| n.推测，可能性，冒昧，放肆，[法律]推定 | |
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capered
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| v.跳跃，雀跃( caper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hilariously
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conned
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| adj.被骗了v.指挥操舵( conn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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hectic
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| adj.肺病的；消耗热的；发热的；闹哄哄的 | |
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ailments
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| 疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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16
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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prostration
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| n. 平伏, 跪倒, 疲劳 | |
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skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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consolatory
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| adj.慰问的，可藉慰的 | |
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tonics
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| n.滋补品( tonic的名词复数 )；主音；奎宁水；浊音 | |
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culled
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| v.挑选，剔除( cull的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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wring
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| n.扭绞；v.拧，绞出，扭 | |
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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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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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benighted
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| adj.蒙昧的 | |
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wayfarer
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| n.旅人 | |
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bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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industriously
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incipient
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| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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sylvan
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| adj.森林的 | |
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moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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ascertain
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| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
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personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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43
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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waylays
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| v.拦截，拦路( waylay的第三人称单数 ) | |
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45
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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46
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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tenement
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| n.公寓；房屋 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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49
yearn
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| v.想念；怀念；渴望 | |
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50
retract
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| vt.缩回，撤回收回，取消 | |
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51
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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53
usurped
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| 篡夺，霸占( usurp的过去式和过去分词 )； 盗用； 篡夺，篡权 | |
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54
drowsy
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| adj.昏昏欲睡的，令人发困的 | |
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55
entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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56
apathetic
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| adj.冷漠的，无动于衷的 | |
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caressingly
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| 爱抚地，亲切地 | |
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