Then she drove to a hotel, and, her luggage deposited there to await her departure, her thoughts turned very naturally towards lunch. Her scamper6 round London in the crisp, clear, frosty air had converted the recollection of her early morning coffee and roll into something extremely nebulous and unsupporting, and it was with the healthy appetite of an eager young mind in an eager young body that she faced the several courses of the table d’hote.
She glanced about her with interest, the little snatches of English conversation which drifted to her from other near-by tables giving her a patriotic7 thrill of pure delight. These were typically English people lunching in a typically English hotel, and she, hitherto a stranger to her own mother-country, was doing likewise. The knowledge filled her with ridiculous satisfaction.
Nor were English people—at home in their own country—anything like as dull and dowdy8 as Glyn Peterson’s sweeping9 criticisms had led her to expect. The men were immensely well-groomed and clean-looking. She liked the “morning-tub” appearance they all had; it reminded her of the Englishman at Montavan. Apparently10 it was a British characteristic.
The women, too, filled her with a species of vicarious pride. They were so well turned-out, with a slim, long limbed grace of figure she found admirable, and with splendid natural complexions—skins like rose and ivory.
Two of them were drifting into the room together now, with a superbly cool assurance of manner—rather as though they had bought the hotel—which brought the sleek11 head-waiter automatically to their side, bowing and obsequious12.
Somewhat to Jean’s satisfaction he convoyed them to the table next her own, and she was pleasantly conscious, as they passed her, of a provocative13 whisper of silk and of the faint fragrance14 of violets subtly permeating15 the atmosphere.
Conscious that perhaps she had been manifesting her interest a little too openly, she turned her attention to a magazine she had bought en route from Dover and was soon absorbed in the inevitable16 happy-ever-after conclusion of the story she had been reading.
“Lady Anne? Oh, she lives at Staple17 now. Didn’t you know?”
The speaker’s voice was clear and resonant18, with the peculiar19 carrying quality which has replaced in the modern Englishwoman of the upper classes that excellent thing in woman which was the proud boast of an earlier generation.
The conjunction of the familiar words “Lady Anne” and “Staple” struck sharply on Jean’s ears, and almost instinctively20 she looked up.
As she stirred, one of the women glanced indifferently in her direction, then placidly21 resumed her conversation with her companion.
“It was just after the smash-up,” she pursued glibly22. “Blaise Tormarin rushed off abroad for a time, and the news of Nesta’s death came while he was away. Poor Lady Anne had to write and tell him of it.”
“Rather ghastly!” commented the other woman. “I never heard the whole story of the affair. I was in Paris, then, and it was all over—barring the general gossip, of course!—by the time I returned. I tried to pump it out of Lady Anne once, but she was as close as an oyster23.”
Both women talked without lowering their voices in the slightest degree, and with that complete indifference24 to the proximity25 of a stranger sometimes exhibited by a certain arrogant26 type.
Jean, realising that it was her father’s friends who were under discussion, and finding herself forced into the position of an unwilling27 auditor28, felt wretchedly uncomfortable. She wished fervently29 that she could in some way arrest the conversation. Yet it was clearly as impossible for her to lean forward and say: “You are talking about the people I am on my way to visit,” as it would have been for her to put her fingers in her ears. So far nothing had been said to which she could actually object. Her feeling was chiefly the offspring of a supersensitive fear that she might learn from the lips of these two gossiping women, one of whom was apparently intimately acquainted with the private history of the Tormarin family, some little fact or detail which Lady Anne might not care for her future guest to know. Apart from this fear, it would hardly have been compatible with human nature—certainly not feminine human nature—if she had not felt pricked30 to considerable personal interest in the topic under discussion.
“Oh, it was a fool business,” the first woman rejoined, settling down to supply the details of the story with an air of rapacious31 satisfaction which reminded Jean of nothing so much as of a dog with a bone. “Nesta Freyne was a typical Italian—though her father was English, I believe—all blazing, passionate32 eyes and blazing, passionate emotion, you know; then there was another man—and there was Blaise Tormarin! You can imagine the consequences for yourself. Blaise has his full share of the Tormarin temper—and a Tormarin in a temper is like a devil with the bit between his teeth. There were violent quarrels and finally the girl bolted, presumably with the other man. Then, later, Lady Anne heard that she had died abroad somewhere. The funny thing is that it seemed to cut Tormarin up rather badly. He’s gloomed about the world ever since, so I suppose he must have been pretty deeply in love with her before the crash came. I never saw her, but I’ve been told she was diabolically33 pretty.”
The other woman laughed, dismissing the tragedy of the little tale with a shallow tinkle34 of mirth.
“Oh, well, I’ve only met Blaise Tormarin once, but I should say he was not the type to relish35 being thrown over for another man!” She peered short-sightedly at the grilled36 fish on her plate, poking37 at it discontentedly with her fork. “I never think they cook their fish decently here, do you?” she complained.
And, with that, both women shelved the affairs of Blaise Tormarin and concentrated upon the variety of culinary sins from which even expensive hotel chefs are not necessarily exempt38.
Jean had no time to bestow39 upon the information which had been thus thrust upon her until she had effected the transport of herself and her belongings40 from the hotel to Waterloo Station, but when this had been satisfactorily accomplished41 and she found herself comfortably settled in a corner seat of the Plymouth express, her thoughts reverted42 to her newly acquired knowledge.
It added a bit of definite outline to the very slight and shadowy picture she had been able to form of her future environment—a picture roughly sketched43 in her mind from the few hints dropped by her father.
She wondered a little why Glyn should have omitted all mention of Blaise Tormarin’s love affair and its unhappy sequel, but a moment’s reflection supplied the explanation. Peterson had admitted that it was ten years since he had heard from Lady Anne; presumably, then, the circumstances just recounted in Jean’s hearing had occurred during those years.
Jean felt that the additional knowledge she had gained rather detracted from the prospective44 pleasure of her visit to Staple. Judging from the comments which she had overheard, her host was likely to prove a somewhat morose45 and gloomy individual, soured by his unfortunate experience of feminine fidelity46.
Thence her thoughts vaulted47 wildly ahead. Most probably, as a direct consequence, he was a woman-hater and, if so, it was more than possible that he would regard her presence at Staple as an unwarrantable intrusion.
A decided48 qualm assailed49 her, deepening quickly into a settled conviction—Jean was nothing if not thorough!—that the real explanation of the delay in Lady Anne’s response to Glyn’s letter had lain in Blaise Tormarin’s objection to the invasion of his home by a strange young woman—an objection Lady Anne had had to overcome, or decide to ignore, before she could answer Glyn’s request in the affirmative.
The idea that she might be an unwelcome guest at Staple filled Jean with lively consternation50, and by the time she had accomplished the necessary change of train at Exeter, and found herself being trundled along on the leisurely51 branch line which conducted her to her ultimate destination, she had succeeded in working herself up into a condition that almost verged52 upon panic.
“Coombe Ea-vie! Coombe Eavie!”
The sing-song intonation53 of a depressed54-looking porter, first rising from a low note to a higher, then descending55 in contrary motion abruptly56 from high to low, was punctuated57 by the sharper, clipped pronouncement of the stationmaster as he bustled58 up the length of the platform declaiming: “’Meavie! ’Meavie! ’Meavie!” with a maddeningly insistent59 repetition that reminded one of a cuckoo in June.
Apparently both stationmaster and porter were too much absorbed in the frenzied60 strophe and antistrophe effect they were producing to observe that any passenger, handicapped by luggage, contemplated61 descending from the train—unexpected arrivals were of rare occurrence at Coombe Eavie—and Jean therefore hastened to transfer herself and her hand-baggage to the platform unassisted. A minute later the train ambled62 on its way again, leaving the stationmaster and the depressed porter grouped in astonished admiration63 before the numerous trunks and suit-cases, labelled “Peterson,” which the luggage van of the departing train had vomited64 forth65.
To the bucolic66 mind, such an unwonted accumulation argued a passenger of quite superlative importance, and with one accord the combined glances of the station staff raked the diminutive67 platform, to discover Jean standing68 somewhat forlornly in the middle, of it, surrounded by the smaller fry of her luggage. The stationmaster hurried forward immediately to do the honours, and Jean addressed him eagerly.
“I want a fiacre—cab”—correcting herself hastily—“to take me to Staple Manor69.”
The man shook his head.
“There are no cabs here, miss,” he informed her regretfully. “Anyone that wants to be met orders Wonnacott’s wagonette in advance.” Then, seeing Jean’s face lengthen70, he continued hastily: “But if they’re expecting you up at Staple, miss, they’ll be sure to send one of the cars to meet you. There!”—triumphantly, as the chug-chug of an approaching motor came to them clearly on the crisp, cold air—“that’ll be it, for certain.”
Followed the sound of a car braking to a standstill in the road outside the station, and almost immediately a masculine figure appeared advancing rapidly from the lower end of the platform.
Even through the dusk of the winter’s afternoon Jean was struck by something curiously71 familiar in the man’s easy, swinging stride. A surge of memories came flooding over her, and she felt her breath catch in her throat at the sudden possibility which flashed into her mind. For an instant she was in doubt—the thing seemed so amazingly improbable. Then, touching72 his hat, the stationmaster moved respectfully aside, and she found herself face to face with the unknown Englishman from Montavan.
She gazed at him speechlessly, and for a moment he, too, seemed taken aback. His eyes met hers in a startled, leaping glance of recognition and something more, something that set her pulses racing73 unsteadily.
“Little comrade!” She could have sworn the words escaped him. Then, almost in the same instant, she saw the old, rather weary gravity replace the sudden fire that had blazed up in the man’s eyes, quenching74 its light.
“So—you are Miss Peterson!”
There was no pleasure, no welcome in his tones; rather, an undercurrent of ironical75 vexation as though Fate had played some scurvy76 trick upon him.
“Yes.” The brief monosyllable came baldly in reply; she hardly knew how to answer him, how to meet his mood. Then, hastily calling up her reserves, she went on lightly: “You don’t seem very pleased to see me. Shall I go away again?”
His mouth relaxed into a grim smile.
“This isn’t Clapham Junction,” he answered tersely77. “There won’t be a train till ten o’clock to-night.”
A glint of humour danced in Jean’s eyes.
“In that case,” she returned gravely, “what do you advise?”
“I don’t advise,” he replied promptly78. “I apologise. Please forgive such an ungracious reception, Miss Peterson—but you must acknowledge it was something in the nature of a surprise to find that you were—you!”
Jean laughed.
“It’s given you an unfair advantage, too,” she replied. “I still haven’t penetrated79 your incognito—but I suppose you are Mr. Brennan?”
“No. Nick Brennan’s my half-brother. I’m Blaise Tormarin, and, as my mother was unable to meet you herself, I came instead. Shall we go? I’ll give the station-master instructions about your baggage.”
So the unknown Englishman of Montavan was the man of whom the two women at the neighbouring lunch table in the hotel had been gossiping—the central figure of that most tragic80 love-affair! Jean thought she could discern, now, the origin of some of those embittered81 comments he had let fall when they were together in the mountains.
In silence she followed him out of the little wayside station to where the big head-lamps of a stationary82 car shed a blaze of light on the roadway, and presently they were slipping smoothly83 along between the high hedges which flanked the road on either hand.
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1
beatific
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| adj.快乐的，有福的 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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favourably
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| adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably | |
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sodden
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| adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑 | |
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scamper
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| v.奔跑，快跑 | |
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patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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dowdy
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| adj.不整洁的；过旧的 | |
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9
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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obsequious
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| adj.谄媚的，奉承的，顺从的 | |
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provocative
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| adj.挑衅的，煽动的，刺激的，挑逗的 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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permeating
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| 弥漫( permeate的现在分词 )； 遍布； 渗入； 渗透 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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staple
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| n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类 | |
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18
resonant
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| adj.(声音)洪亮的，共鸣的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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glibly
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| adv.流利地，流畅地；满口 | |
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oyster
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| n.牡蛎；沉默寡言的人 | |
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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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proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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auditor
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| n.审计员，旁听着 | |
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fervently
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| adv.热烈地，热情地，强烈地 | |
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pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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rapacious
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| adj.贪婪的，强夺的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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diabolically
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tinkle
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| vi.叮当作响；n.叮当声 | |
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relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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36
grilled
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| adj. 烤的, 炙过的, 有格子的 动词grill的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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37
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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43
sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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45
morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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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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assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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50
consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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51
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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52
verged
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| 接近，逼近（verge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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53
intonation
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| n.语调，声调；发声 | |
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54
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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55
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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56
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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57
punctuated
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| v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物 | |
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58
bustled
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| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
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59
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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60
frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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61
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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62
ambled
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| v.（马）缓行( amble的过去式和过去分词 )；从容地走，漫步 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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vomited
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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bucolic
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| adj.乡村的；牧羊的 | |
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diminutive
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| adj.小巧可爱的，小的 | |
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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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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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lengthen
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| vt.使伸长，延长 | |
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71
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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73
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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74
quenching
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| 淬火，熄 | |
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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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76
scurvy
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| adj.下流的，卑鄙的，无礼的；n.坏血病 | |
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77
tersely
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| adv. 简捷地, 简要地 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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81
embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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82
stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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