Tibby was now approaching his last year at Oxford1. He had moved out of college, and was contemplating2 the Universe, or such portions of it as concerned him, from his comfortable lodgings3 in Long Wall. He was not concerned with much. When a young man is untroubled by passions and sincerely indifferent to public opinion, his outlook is necessarily limited. Tibby neither wished to strengthen the position of the rich nor to improve that of the poor, and so was well content to watch the elms nodding behind the mildly embattled parapets of Magdalen. There are worse lives. Though selfish, he was never cruel; though affected4 in manner, he never posed. Like Margaret, he disdained5 the heroic equipment, and it was only after many visits that men discovered Schlegel to possess a character and a brain. He had done well in Mods, much to the surprise of those who attended lectures and took proper exercise, and was now glancing disdainfully at Chinese in case he should some day consent to qualify as a Student Interpreter. To him thus employed Helen entered. A telegram had preceded her.
He noticed, in a distant way, that his sister had altered. As a rule he found her too pronounced, and had never come across this look of appeal, pathetic yet dignified--the look of a sailor who has lost everything at sea.
"I have come from Oniton," she began. "There has been a great deal of trouble there."
"Who's for lunch?" said Tibby, picking up the claret, which was warming in the hearth6. Helen sat down submissively at the table. "Why such an early start?" he asked.
"Sunrise or something--when I could get away."
"I don't know what's to be done, Tibby. I am very much upset at a piece of news that concerns Meg, and do not want to face her, and I am not going back to Wickham Place. I stopped here to tell you this."
The landlady8 came in with the cutlets. Tibby put a marker in the leaves of his Chinese Grammar and helped them. Oxford--the Oxford of the vacation--dreamed and rustled9 outside, and indoors the little fire was coated with grey where the sunshine touched it. Helen continued her odd story.
"Give Meg my love and say that I want to be alone. I mean to go to Munich or else Bonn."
"Such a message is easily given," said her brother.
"As regards Wickham Place and my share of the furniture, you and she are to do exactly as you like. My own feeling is that everything may just as well be sold. What does one want with dusty economic, books, which have made the world no better, or with mother's hideous10 chiffoniers? I have also another commission for you. I want you to deliver a letter." She got up. "I haven't written it yet. Why shouldn't I post it, though?" She sat down again. "My head is rather wretched. I hope that none of your friends are likely to come in."
Tibby locked the door. His friends often found it in this condition. Then he asked whether anything had gone wrong at Evie's wedding.
"Not there," said Helen, and burst into tears.
He had known her hysterical--it was one of her aspects with which he had no concern--and yet these tears touched him as something unusual. They were nearer the things that did concern him, such as music. He laid down his knife and looked at her curiously11. Then, as she continued to sob12, he went on with his lunch.
The time came for the second course, and she was still crying. Apple Charlotte was to follow, which spoils by waiting. "Do you mind Mrs. Martlett coming in?" he asked, "or shall I take it from her at the door?"
"Could I bathe my eyes, Tibby?"
He took her to his bedroom, and introduced the pudding in her absence. Having helped himself, he put it down to warm in the hearth. His hand stretched towards the Grammar, and soon he was turning over the pages, raising his eyebrows13 scornfully, perhaps at human nature, perhaps at Chinese. To him thus employed Helen returned. She had pulled herself together, but the grave appeal had not vanished from her eyes.
"Now for the explanation," she said. "Why didn't I begin with it? I have found out something about Mr. Wilcox. He has behaved very wrongly indeed, and ruined two people's lives. It all came on me very suddenly last night; I am very much upset, and I do not know what to do. Mrs. Bast--"
"Oh, those people!"
Helen seemed silenced.
"Shall I lock the door again?"
"No, thanks, Tibbikins. You're being very good to me. I want to tell you the story before I go abroad. You must do exactly what you like--treat it as part of the furniture. Meg cannot have heard it yet, I think. But I cannot face her and tell her that the man she is going to marry has misconducted himself. I don't even know whether she ought to be told. Knowing as she does that I dislike him, she will suspect me, and think that I want to ruin her match. I simply don't know what to make of such a thing. I trust your judgment14. What would you do?"
"I gather he has had a mistress," said Tibby.
Helen flushed with shame and anger. "And ruined two people's lives. And goes about saying that personal actions count for nothing, and there always will be rich and poor. He met her when he was trying to get rich out in Cyprus--I don't wish to make him worse than he is, and no doubt she was ready enough to meet him. But there it is. They met. He goes his way and she goes hers. What do you suppose is the end of such women?"
He conceded that it was a bad business.
"They end in two ways: Either they sink till the lunatic asylums15 and the workhouses are full of them, and cause Mr. Wilcox to write letters to the papers complaining of our national degeneracy, or else they entrap16 a boy into marriage before it is too late. She--I can't blame her.
"But this isn't all," she continued after a long pause, during which the landlady served them with coffee. "I come now to the business that took us to Oniton. We went all three. Acting17 on Mr. Wilcox's advice, the man throws up a secure situation and takes an insecure one, from which he is dismissed. There are certain excuses, but in the main Mr. Wilcox is to blame, as Meg herself admitted. It is only common justice that he should employ the man himself. But he meets the woman, and, like the cur that he is, he refuses, and tries to get rid of them. He makes Meg write. Two notes came from her late that evening--one for me, one for Leonard, dismissing him with barely a reason. I couldn't understand. Then it comes out that Mrs. Bast had spoken to Mr. Wilcox on the lawn while we left her to get rooms, and was still speaking about him when Leonard came back to her. This Leonard knew all along. He thought it natural he should be ruined twice. Natural! Could you have contained yourself?.
"It is certainly a very bad business," said Tibby.
His reply seemed to calm his sister. "I was afraid that I saw it out of proportion. But you are right outside it, and you must know. In a day or two--or perhaps a week--take whatever steps you think fit. I leave it in your hands."
She concluded her charge.
"The facts as they touch Meg are all before you," she added; and Tibby sighed and felt it rather hard that, because of his open mind, he should be empanelled to serve as a juror. He had never been interested in human beings, for which one must blame him, but he had had rather too much of them at Wickham Place. Just as some people cease to attend when books are mentioned, so Tibby's attention wandered when "personal relations" came under discussion. Ought Margaret to know what Helen knew the Basts to know? Similar questions had vexed18 him from infancy19, and at Oxford he had learned to say that the importance of human beings has been vastly overrated by specialists. The epigram, with its faint whiff of the eighties, meant nothing. But he might have let it off now if his sister had not been ceaselessly beautiful.
"You see, Helen--have a cigarette--I don't see what I'm to do."
"Then there's nothing to be done. I dare say you are right. Let them marry. There remains20 the question of compensation. "
"Do you want me to adjudicate that too? Had you not better consult an expert?"
"This part is in confidence," said Helen. "It has nothing to do with Meg, and do not mention it to her. The compensation--I do not see who is to pay it if I don't, and I have already decided21 on the minimum sum. As soon as possible I am placing it to your account, and when I am in Germany you will pay it over for me. I shall never forget your kindness, Tibbikins, if you do this."
"What is the sum?"
"Five thousand."
"Good God alive!" said Tibby, and went crimson22.
"Now, what is the good of driblets? To go through life having done one thing--to have raised one person from the abyss: not these puny23 gifts of shillings and blankets--making the grey more grey. No doubt people will think me extraordinary."
"I don't care a damn what people think!" cried he, heated to unusual manliness24 of diction. "But it's half what you have."
"Not nearly half." She spread out her hands over her soiled skirt. "I have far too much, and we settled at Chelsea last spring that three hundred a year is necessary to set a man on his feet. What I give will bring in a hundred and fifty between two. It isn't enough."
He could not recover. He was not angry or even shocked, and he saw that Helen would still have plenty to live on. But it amazed him to think what haycocks people can make of their lives. His delicate intonations25 would not work, and he could only blurt26 out that the five thousand pounds would mean a great deal of bother for him personally.
"I didn't expect you to understand me."
"I? I understand nobody."
"But you'll do it?"
"Apparently27."
"I leave you two commissions, then. The first concerns Mr. Wilcox, and you are to use your discretion28. The second concerns the money, and is to be mentioned to no one, and carried out literally29. You will send a hundred pounds on account tomorrow."
He walked with her to the station, passing through those streets whose serried30 beauty never bewildered him and never fatigued31. The lovely creature raised domes32 and spires33 into the cloudless blue, and only the ganglion of vulgarity round Carfax showed how evanescent was the phantom34, how faint its claim to represent England. Helen, rehearsing her commission, noticed nothing: the Basts were in her brain, and she retold the crisis in a meditative35 way, which might have made other men curious. She was seeing whether it would hold. He asked her once why she had taken the Basts right into the heart of Evie's wedding. She stopped like a frightened animal and said, "Does that seem to you so odd?" Her eyes, the hand laid on the mouth, quite haunted him, until they were absorbed into the figure of St. Mary the Virgin36, before whom he paused for a moment on the walk home.
It is convenient to follow him in the discharge of his duties. Margaret summoned him the next day. She was terrified at Helen's flight, and he had to say that she had called in at Oxford. Then she said: "Did she seem worried at any rumour37 about Henry?" He answered, "Yes." "I knew it was that!" she exclaimed. "I'll write to her." Tibby was relieved.
He then sent the cheque to the address that Helen gave him, and stated that later on he was instructed to forward five thousand pounds. An answer came back, very civil and quiet in tone--such an answer as Tibby himself would have given. The cheque was returned, the legacy38 refused, the writer being in no need of money. Tibby forwarded this to Helen, adding in the fulness of his heart that Leonard Bast seemed somewhat a monumental person after all. Helen's reply was frantic39. He was to take no notice. He was to go down at once and say that she commanded acceptance. He went. A scurf of books and china ornaments40 awaited them. The Basts had just been evicted41 for not paying their rent, and had wandered no one knew whither. Helen had begun bungling42 with her money by this time, and had even sold out her shares in the Nottingham and Derby Railway. For some weeks she did nothing. Then she reinvested, and, owing to the good advice of her stockbrokers43, became rather richer than she had been before.
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1
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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2
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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disdained
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| 鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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asylums
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| n.避难所( asylum的名词复数 )；庇护；政治避难；精神病院 | |
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entrap
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| v.以网或陷阱捕捉，使陷入圈套 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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20
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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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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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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24
manliness
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| 刚毅 | |
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intonations
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| n.语调，说话的抑扬顿挫( intonation的名词复数 )；（演奏或唱歌中的）音准 | |
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26
blurt
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| vt.突然说出，脱口说出 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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serried
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| adj.拥挤的；密集的 | |
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31
fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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38
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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39
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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41
evicted
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| v.（依法从房屋里或土地上）驱逐，赶出( evict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
bungling
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| adj.笨拙的，粗劣的v.搞糟，完不成( bungle的现在分词 )；笨手笨脚地做；失败；完不成 | |
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stockbrokers
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| n.股票经纪人( stockbroker的名词复数 ) | |
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