"So of course," wrote Betty Flanders, pressing her heels rather deeper in the sand, "there was nothing for it but to leave."
Slowly welling from the point of her gold nib1, pale blue ink dissolved the full stop; for there her pen stuck; her eyes fixed2, and tears slowly filled them. The entire bay quivered; the lighthouse wobbled; and she had the illusion that the mast of Mr. Connor's little yacht was bending like a wax candle in the sun. She winked4 quickly. Accidents were awful things. She winked again. The mast was straight; the waves were regular; the lighthouse was upright; but the blot5 had spread.
"...nothing for it but to leave," she read.
"Well, if Jacob doesn't want to play" (the shadow of Archer6, her eldest7 son, fell across the notepaper and looked blue on the sand, and she felt chilly--it was the third of September already), "if Jacob doesn't want to play"--what a horrid8 blot! It must be getting late.
"Where IS that tiresome9 little boy?" she said. "I don't see him. Run and find him. Tell him to come at once." "...but mercifully," she scribbled11, ignoring the full stop, "everything seems satisfactorily arranged, packed though we are like herrings in a barrel, and forced to stand the perambulator which the landlady12 quite naturally won't allow...."
Such were Betty Flanders's letters to Captain Barfoot--many-paged, tear- stained. Scarborough is seven hundred miles from Cornwall: Captain Barfoot is in Scarborough: Seabrook is dead. Tears made all the dahlias in her garden undulate in red waves and flashed the glass house in her eyes, and spangled the kitchen with bright knives, and made Mrs. Jarvis, the rector's wife, think at church, while the hymn-tune played and Mrs. Flanders bent13 low over her little boys' heads, that marriage is a fortress14 and widows stray solitary15 in the open fields, picking up stones, gleaning16 a few golden straws, lonely, unprotected, poor creatures. Mrs. Flanders had been a widow for these two years.
"Ja--cob! Ja--cob!" Archer shouted.
"Scarborough," Mrs. Flanders wrote on the envelope, and dashed a bold line beneath; it was her native town; the hub of the universe. But a stamp? She ferreted in her bag; then held it up mouth downwards17; then fumbled18 in her lap, all so vigorously that Charles Steele in the Panama hat suspended his paint-brush.
Like the antennae19 of some irritable20 insect it positively21 trembled. Here was that woman moving--actually going to get up--confound her! He struck the canvas a hasty violet-black dab22. For the landscape needed it. It was too pale--greys flowing into lavenders, and one star or a white gull23 suspended just so--too pale as usual. The critics would say it was too pale, for he was an unknown man exhibiting obscurely, a favourite with his landladies24' children, wearing a cross on his watch chain, and much gratified if his landladies liked his pictures--which they often did.
"Ja--cob! Ja--cob!" Archer shouted.
Exasperated25 by the noise, yet loving children, Steele picked nervously26 at the dark little coils on his palette.
"I saw your brother--I saw your brother," he said, nodding his head, as Archer lagged past him, trailing his spade, and scowling27 at the old gentleman in spectacles.
"Over there--by the rock," Steele muttered, with his brush between his teeth, squeezing out raw sienna, and keeping his eyes fixed on Betty Flanders's back.
"Ja--cob! Ja--cob!" shouted Archer, lagging on after a second.
The voice had an extraordinary sadness. Pure from all body, pure from all passion, going out into the world, solitary, unanswered, breaking against rocks--so it sounded.
Steele frowned; but was pleased by the effect of the black--it was just THAT note which brought the rest together. "Ah, one may learn to paint at fifty! There's Titian..." and so, having found the right tint28, up he looked and saw to his horror a cloud over the bay.
Mrs. Flanders rose, slapped her coat this side and that to get the sand off, and picked up her black parasol.
The rock was one of those tremendously solid brown, or rather black, rocks which emerge from the sand like something primitive29. Rough with crinkled limpet shells and sparsely30 strewn with locks of dry seaweed, a small boy has to stretch his legs far apart, and indeed to feel rather heroic, before he gets to the top.
But there, on the very top, is a hollow full of water, with a sandy bottom; with a blob of jelly stuck to the side, and some mussels. A fish darts31 across. The fringe of yellow-brown seaweed flutters, and out pushes an opal-shelled crab32--
"Oh, a huge crab," Jacob murmured--and begins his journey on weakly legs on the sandy bottom. Now! Jacob plunged33 his hand. The crab was cool and very light. But the water was thick with sand, and so, scrambling34 down, Jacob was about to jump, holding his bucket in front of him, when he saw, stretched entirely35 rigid36, side by side, their faces very red, an enormous man and woman.
An enormous man and woman (it was early-closing day) were stretched motionless, with their heads on pocket-handkerchiefs, side by side, within a few feet of the sea, while two or three gulls37 gracefully38 skirted the incoming waves, and settled near their boots.
The large red faces lying on the bandanna39 handkerchiefs stared up at Jacob. Jacob stared down at them. Holding his bucket very carefully, Jacob then jumped deliberately40 and trotted41 away very nonchalantly at first, but faster and faster as the waves came creaming up to him and he had to swerve43 to avoid them, and the gulls rose in front of him and floated out and settled again a little farther on. A large black woman was sitting on the sand. He ran towards her.
"Nanny! Nanny!" he cried, sobbing44 the words out on the crest45 of each gasping46 breath.
The waves came round her. She was a rock. She was covered with the seaweed which pops when it is pressed. He was lost.
There he stood. His face composed itself. He was about to roar when, lying among the black sticks and straw under the cliff, he saw a whole skull47--perhaps a cow's skull, a skull, perhaps, with the teeth in it. Sobbing, but absent-mindedly, he ran farther and farther away until he held the skull in his arms.
"There he is!" cried Mrs. Flanders, coming round the rock and covering the whole space of the beach in a few seconds. "What has he got hold of? Put it down, Jacob! Drop it this moment! Something horrid, I know. Why didn't you stay with us? Naughty little boy! Now put it down. Now come along both of you," and she swept round, holding Archer by one hand and fumbling48 for Jacob's arm with the other. But he ducked down and picked up the sheep's jaw49, which was loose.
Swinging her bag, clutching her parasol, holding Archer's hand, and telling the story of the gunpowder50 explosion in which poor Mr. Curnow had lost his eye, Mrs. Flanders hurried up the steep lane, aware all the time in the depths of her mind of some buried discomfort51.
There on the sand not far from the lovers lay the old sheep's skull without its jaw. Clean, white, wind-swept, sand-rubbed, a more unpolluted piece of bone existed nowhere on the coast of Cornwall. The sea holly52 would grow through the eye-sockets; it would turn to powder, or some golfer, hitting his ball one fine day, would disperse53 a little dust--No, but not in lodgings54, thought Mrs. Flanders. It's a great experiment coming so far with young children. There's no man to help with the perambulator. And Jacob is such a handful; so obstinate55 already.
"Throw it away, dear, do," she said, as they got into the road; but Jacob squirmed away from her; and the wind rising, she took out her bonnet-pin, looked at the sea, and stuck it in afresh. The wind was rising. The waves showed that uneasiness, like something alive, restive56, expecting the whip, of waves before a storm. The fishing-boats were leaning to the water's brim. A pale yellow light shot across the purple sea; and shut. The lighthouse was lit. "Come along," said Betty Flanders. The sun blazed in their faces and gilded57 the great blackberries trembling out from the hedge which Archer tried to strip as they passed.
"Don't lag, boys. You've got nothing to change into," said Betty, pulling them along, and looking with uneasy emotion at the earth displayed so luridly58, with sudden sparks of light from greenhouses in gardens, with a sort of yellow and black mutability, against this blazing sunset, this astonishing agitation59 and vitality60 of colour, which stirred Betty Flanders and made her think of responsibility and danger. She gripped Archer's hand. On she plodded61 up the hill.
"What did I ask you to remember?" she said.
"I don't know," said Archer.
"Well, I don't know either," said Betty, humorously and simply, and who shall deny that this blankness of mind, when combined with profusion62, mother wit, old wives' tales, haphazard63 ways, moments of astonishing daring, humour, and sentimentality--who shall deny that in these respects every woman is nicer than any man?
Well, Betty Flanders, to begin with.
She had her hand upon the garden gate.
"The meat!" she exclaimed, striking the latch64 down.
She had forgotten the meat.
There was Rebecca at the window.
The bareness of Mrs. Pearce's front room was fully10 displayed at ten o'clock at night when a powerful oil lamp stood on the middle of the table. The harsh light fell on the garden; cut straight across the lawn; lit up a child's bucket and a purple aster42 and reached the hedge. Mrs. Flanders had left her sewing on the table. There were her large reels of white cotton and her steel spectacles; her needle-case; her brown wool wound round an old postcard. There were the bulrushes and the Strand65 magazines; and the linoleum66 sandy from the boys' boots. A daddy-long- legs shot from corner to corner and hit the lamp globe. The wind blew straight dashes of rain across the window, which flashed silver as they passed through the light. A single leaf tapped hurriedly, persistently67, upon the glass. There was a hurricane out at sea.
Archer could not sleep.
Mrs. Flanders stooped over him. "Think of the fairies," said Betty Flanders. "Think of the lovely, lovely birds settling down on their nests. Now shut your eyes and see the old mother bird with a worm in her beak68. Now turn and shut your eyes," she murmured, "and shut your eyes."
The lodging-house seemed full of gurgling and rushing; the cistern69 overflowing70; water bubbling and squeaking71 and running along the pipes and streaming down the windows.
"What's all that water rushing in?" murmured Archer.
"It's only the bath water running away," said Mrs. Flanders.
Something snapped out of doors.
"I say, won't that steamer sink?" said Archer, opening his eyes.
"Of course it won't," said Mrs. Flanders. "The Captain's in bed long ago. Shut your eyes, and think of the fairies, fast asleep, under the flowers."
"I thought he'd never get off--such a hurricane," she whispered to Rebecca, who was bending over a spirit-lamp in the small room next door. The wind rushed outside, but the small flame of the spirit-lamp burnt quietly, shaded from the cot by a book stood on edge.
"Did he take his bottle well?" Mrs. Flanders whispered, and Rebecca nodded and went to the cot and turned down the quilt, and Mrs. Flanders bent over and looked anxiously at the baby, asleep, but frowning. The window shook, and Rebecca stole like a cat and wedged it.
The two women murmured over the spirit-lamp, plotting the eternal conspiracy72 of hush73 and clean bottles while the wind raged and gave a sudden wrench74 at the cheap fastenings.
Both looked round at the cot. Their lips were pursed. Mrs. Flanders crossed over to the cot.
"Asleep?" whispered Rebecca, looking at the cot.
Mrs. Flanders nodded.
"Good-night, Rebecca," Mrs. Flanders murmured, and Rebecca called her ma'm, though they were conspirators75 plotting the eternal conspiracy of hush and clean bottles.
Mrs. Flanders had left the lamp burning in the front room. There were her spectacles, her sewing; and a letter with the Scarborough postmark. She had not drawn76 the curtains either.
The light blazed out across the patch of grass; fell on the child's green bucket with the gold line round it, and upon the aster which trembled violently beside it. For the wind was tearing across the coast, hurling77 itself at the hills, and leaping, in sudden gusts78, on top of its own back. How it spread over the town in the hollow! How the lights seemed to wink3 and quiver in its fury, lights in the harbour, lights in bedroom windows high up! And rolling dark waves before it, it raced over the Atlantic, jerking the stars above the ships this way and that.
There was a click in the front sitting-room79. Mr. Pearce had extinguished the lamp. The garden went out. It was but a dark patch. Every inch was rained upon. Every blade of grass was bent by rain. Eyelids80 would have been fastened down by the rain. Lying on one's back one would have seen nothing but muddle81 and confusion--clouds turning and turning, and something yellow-tinted and sulphurous in the darkness.
The little boys in the front bedroom had thrown off their blankets and lay under the sheets. It was hot; rather sticky and steamy. Archer lay spread out, with one arm striking across the pillow. He was flushed; and when the heavy curtain blew out a little he turned and half-opened his eyes. The wind actually stirred the cloth on the chest of drawers, and let in a little light, so that the sharp edge of the chest of drawers was visible, running straight up, until a white shape bulged82 out; and a silver streak83 showed in the looking-glass.
In the other bed by the door Jacob lay asleep, fast asleep, profoundly unconscious. The sheep's jaw with the big yellow teeth in it lay at his feet. He had kicked it against the iron bed-rail.
Outside the rain poured down more directly and powerfully as the wind fell in the early hours of the morning. The aster was beaten to the earth. The child's bucket was half-full of rainwater; and the opal- shelled crab slowly circled round the bottom, trying with its weakly legs to climb the steep side; trying again and falling back, and trying again and again.
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nib
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| n.钢笔尖；尖头 | |
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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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wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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blot
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| vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍 | |
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archer
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| n.射手，弓箭手 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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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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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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gleaning
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| n.拾落穗，拾遗，落穗v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的现在分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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antennae
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| n.天线；触角 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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dab
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| v.轻触，轻拍，轻涂；n.(颜料等的)轻涂 | |
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gull
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| n.鸥；受骗的人；v.欺诈 | |
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landladies
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| n.女房东，女店主，女地主( landlady的名词复数 ) | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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sparsely
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| adv.稀疏地；稀少地；不足地；贫乏地 | |
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darts
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| n.掷飞镖游戏；飞镖( dart的名词复数 )；急驰，飞奔v.投掷，投射( dart的第三人称单数 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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crab
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| n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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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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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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gulls
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| n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 ) | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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bandanna
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| n.大手帕 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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aster
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| n.紫菀属植物 | |
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swerve
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| v.突然转向，背离；n．转向，弯曲，背离 | |
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sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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gunpowder
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| n.火药 | |
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51
discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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52
holly
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| n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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53
disperse
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| vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散 | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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restive
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| adj.不安宁的，不安静的 | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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luridly
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| adv. 青灰色的(苍白的, 深浓色的, 火焰等火红的) | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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plodded
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| v.沉重缓慢地走（路）( plod的过去式和过去分词 )；努力从事；沉闷地苦干；缓慢进行（尤指艰难枯燥的工作） | |
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profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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linoleum
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| n.油布，油毯 | |
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persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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beak
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| n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻 | |
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cistern
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| n.贮水池 | |
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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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squeaking
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| v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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72
conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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73
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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74
wrench
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| v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受 | |
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75
conspirators
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| n.共谋者，阴谋家( conspirator的名词复数 ) | |
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76
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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77
hurling
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| n.爱尔兰式曲棍球v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的现在分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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78
gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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79
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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80
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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81
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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82
bulged
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| 凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 )； 充满； 塞满（某物） | |
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83
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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