“I must go and tell his mother,” she kept repeating, when Nell had read the telegram, and had set about, with true female instinct, to make her a cup of tea.
“Don’t you worry over that, dear—I’ll tell her.”
“Reckon he’d sooner I did.”
“No—no; it would be such a strain for you. I’ll go when I’ve made your tea.”
At that moment little Will woke up, and cried for his breakfast—his mother had forgotten him for the first time since he was born. Nell welcomed the distraction4, though her heart tightened5 as she saw Thyrza’s arms sweep to the child, and quiver while she held him with his little cool tear-dabbled cheek against her own so tearless and so dry. Nell left her with the boy at her breast, a big yellow hank of hair adrift upon her shoulder, and her eyes staring from under the tangle6, fixed7, strangely dark, strangely bright, as if their grief were both a shadow and an illumination.
She herself ran back on her self-inflicted errand, all her being merged8 into the one pain of knowing that in ten minutes she would have turned a jogging peace to bitterness, and bankrupted her mother’s life of its chief treasure. She saw herself as a flame leaping from one burning house to set another light.
Mrs. Beatup’s reception of the news held both the expected and the unexpected.
[269]
“I knew it,” she said stonily—“I felt it—I felt it in my boans. And I toald him, too—I told him, poor soul, as he’d never come back, and now he’ll never come, surelye.” Then she said suddenly—“I mun go to her.”
“Go to whom, mother dear?”
“Thyrza. He’d want it ... and reckon she feels it even wuss than me.”
Nothing could dissuade9 her, and off she went, to comfort the woman with whom she had so long played tug-of-war for her son.
Nell stayed behind in the dreary10 house, where it seemed as if things slunk and crept. It was holiday-time, so Zacky was at home, sobbing11 in a corner of the haystack, crying on and on monotonously12 till he scarcely knew what he cried for, then suddenly charmed out of his grief by a big rat that popped out of the straw and ran across his legs. Elphick and Juglery mumbled13 and grumbled14 together in the barn, and talked of the shame of a yeoman dying out of his bed, and cast deprecating eyes on the indecency of Harry15, dark against the sky on the ribbed swell16 of the Street field, making his late sowings with the new boy at his heels. Up and down the furrows17 went Harry, with his head hung low, in his ears the mutter of the guns, so faint on the windless April noon that he sometimes thought they were just the sorrowful beating of his own heart—up and down, scattering18 seed into the earth, leaving his token of life in the fields he loved before he was himself taken up and cast, vital and insignificant19 as a seed, into the furrows of Aceldama or the Field of Blood....
Mus’ Beatup sat crouched20 over the fire, the tears every now and then welling up in his eyes, and sometimes overflowing21 on his cheeks, whence he wiped them away with the back of his hand. “’Tis enough to maake a man taake to drink,” he muttered to himself—“this is wot [270] drives men to drink, surelye.” Every now and then he looked up at the clock.
The clock struck twelve, and the Rifle Volunteer called over the fields:
“Come, farmer, and have a pot with me. You’ve lost a son in your War—there were no sons lost in mine, but pots of beer are good for joy or sorrow. Come and forget that boy for five minutes, how he looked and what he said to you, forget this War through which good yeomen die out of their beds, and drink with the Volunteer, who drilled and marched and camped and did every other warlike thing save fighting, and died between his sheets.”
Mus’ Beatup groped for his stick. Then he shook his head rather sadly. “The boy’s scarce cold in his grave. Reckon I mun wait a day or two before I disremember his last words to me.”
Mrs. Beatup did not come home till after supper, and went to bed almost at once. She felt fagged and tottery22, and there was a shrivelled, fallen look about her face. When she was in bed, she could not sleep, but lay watching the moon travel across the room, lighting23 first the mirror, then the wall, then her own head, then maaster’s, then climbing away up the chimney like a ghost. Every now and then she fell into a little, light dose, so thridden with dreams that it was scarcely sleeping.
In these dreams Tom was always a child, in her arms, or at her feet, or spannelling about after the manner of small boys with tops and string. She did not dream of him as grown, and this was the basis of her new agreement with Thyrza. Thyrza could never think of him as a child, for she had never seen him younger than eighteen; all her memories were concentrated in his few short years of manhood, and his childhood belonged to his mother. So his mother and his wife divided his memory up between them, and each thought she had the better part.
[271]
Mrs. Beatup wondered if anyone—Bill Putland or Mus’ Archie—would write and tell her about Tom’s end. So far she had no idea how he had died, and her imagination crept tearfully round him, asking little piteous questions of the darkness—Had he suffered much? Had he asked for her? Had he wanted her?—Oh, reckon he had wanted her, and she had not been there, she had not known that he was dying, she had been pottering round after her household, cooking and washing up and sweeping24 and dusting, and thinking of him as alive and well, while all the time he was perhaps crying out for her in the mud of No Man’s Land....
The tears rolled down her cheeks in the darkness that followed the setting of the moon. Was it for this that she had borne him in hope and anguish25?—that he should die alone, away from her, like a dog, in the mud?... She saw the mud, he had so often told her of it, she saw it sucking and oozing26 round him like the mud outside the cowhouse door; she saw the milky27 puddles28 ... she saw them grow dark and streaked29 with blood. Then, just as her heart was breaking, she pictured him in the bare clean ward30 of a hospital, as she had seen him at Eastbourne, with a kind nurse to relieve his last pain and take down his last little messages. Oh, someone was sure to write to Tom’s mother and tell her how he had died, and perhaps send her a message from him.
The daylight crept into the room, stabbing like a finger under the blind, and with it her restlessness increased. Then a pool of sunshine gleamed at the side of the bed. She felt that she could not lie any longer, so climbed out slowly from under the blankets. She tried not to disturb her husband, but she was too unwieldy for a noiseless rising, and she heard him turn over and mutter, asking her what she meant by “waaking a man to his trouble”—then falling asleep again.
[272]
She went down to the kitchen, to find Harry, his eyes big and blurred31 with sleep, just going to set about his business in the yard. Moved by a quake of tenderness for this surviving son, she made him a cup of cocoa, and insisted on his drinking it before he went out to work. Then she did her own scrubbing with more care than usual—“Reckon we must kip the farm up, now he’s agone.” Urged by the same thought she went out to the Dutch barn and mixed the chicken food, then opened the hen-houses, feeling in the warm nests for eggs.
By now the sun was high, a big blazing pan slopping fire over the roofs and into the ponds. The air was full of sounds—crowings, cacklings, cluckings, the scurry32 of fowls33, the stamping of horses, and then the whining34 hiss35 of milk into zinc36 pails. Hoofs37 thudded in the lane, the call of a girl came from a distant field, all the country of the Four Roads was waking to life and work, faltering38 no more than light and darkness because one of its sons had died for the fields he used to plough. Wheels crunched39 in the drive, and then came the postman’s knock. Mrs. Beatup put down her trug of meal, and waddled40 off towards the house ... perhaps a letter had come about Tom; it was rather early yet, still, perhaps it had come.
But Harry had already been to the door, and shook his head when she asked if there was anything for her.
“Thur’s naun.”
“Naun fur none of us?”
“Only fur me.”
She saw that he was carrying a long, official-looking envelope, and that his hand was clenched41 round it, as if he held a knife.
“Wot’s that?”
[273]
“My calling-up paapers.”
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收听单词发音
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1
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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2
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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3
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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4
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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5
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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6
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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7
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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8
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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9
dissuade
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| v.劝阻，阻止 | |
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10
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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11
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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12
monotonously
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| adv.单调地，无变化地 | |
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13
mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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15
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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16
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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17
furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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18
scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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19
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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20
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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22
tottery
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| adj.蹒跚的，摇摇欲倒 | |
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23
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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24
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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25
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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26
oozing
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的现在分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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27
milky
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| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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28
puddles
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| n.水坑， （尤指道路上的）雨水坑( puddle的名词复数 ) | |
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29
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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30
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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31
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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32
scurry
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| vi.急匆匆地走；使急赶；催促；n.快步急跑，疾走；仓皇奔跑声；骤雨，骤雪；短距离赛马 | |
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33
fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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34
whining
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| n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚 | |
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35
hiss
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| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
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36
zinc
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| n.锌；vt.在...上镀锌 | |
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37
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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38
faltering
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| 犹豫的，支吾的，蹒跚的 | |
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39
crunched
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| v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的过去式和过去分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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40
waddled
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| v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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