She stood alone in her own room, with none to mark the white-hot pallor of the oval face, the scornful curve of quivering nostrils1, the dry lustre2 of flashing eyes. But while she stood a heavy step went blustering3 down two flights of stairs, and double doors slammed upon the ground floor.
It was a little London house, with five floors from basement to attic4, and a couple of rooms upon each, like most little houses in London; but this one had latterly been the scene of an equally undistinguished drama of real life, upon which the curtain was even now descending5. Although a third was whispered by the world, the persons of this drama were really only two.
Rachel Minchin, before the disastrous6 step which gave her that surname, was a young Australian lady whose apparent attractions were only equalled by her absolute poverty; that is to say, she had been born at Heidelberg, near Melbourne, of English parents more gentle than practical, who soon left her to fight the world and the devil with no other armory7 than a good face, a fine nature, and the pride of any heiress. It is true that Rachel also had a voice; but there was never enough of it to augur8 an income. At twenty, therefore, she was already a governess in the wilds, where women are as scarce as water, but where the man for Rachel did not breathe. A few years later she earned a berth9 to England as companion to a lady; and her fate awaited her on board.
Mr. Minchin had reached his prime in the underworld, of which he also was a native, without touching10 affluence11, until his fortieth year. Nevertheless, he was a travelled man, and no mere12 nomad13 of the bush. As a mining expert he had seen much life in South Africa as well as in Western Australia, but at last he was to see more in Europe as a gentleman of means. A wife had no place in his European scheme; a husband was the last thing Rachel wanted; but a long sea voyage, an uncongenial employ, and the persistent14 chivalry15 of a handsome, entertaining, self-confident man of the world, formed a combination as fatal to her inexperience as that of so much poverty, pride, and beauty proved to Alexander Minchin. They were married without ceremony on the very day that they arrived in England, where they had not an actual friend between them, nor a relative to whom either was personally known. In the beginning this mattered nothing; they had to see Europe and enjoy themselves; that they could do unaided; and the bride did it only the more thoroughly16, in a sort of desperation, as she realized that the benefits of her marriage were to be wholly material after all.
In the larger life of cities, Alexander Minchin was no longer the idle and good-humored cavalier to whom Rachel had learned to look for unfailing consideration at sea. The illustrative incidents may be omitted; but here he gambled, there he drank; and in his cups every virtue17 dissolved. Rachel's pride did not mend matters; she was a thought too ready with her resentment18; of this, however, she was herself aware, and would forgive the more freely because there was often some obvious fault on her side before all was said. Quarrels of infinite bitterness were thus patched up, and the end indefinitely delayed.
In the meantime, tired of travelling, and impoverished19 by the husband's follies20, the hapless couple returned to London, where a pure fluke with some mining shares introduced Minchin to finer gambling21 than he had found abroad. The man was bitten. There was a fortune waiting for special knowledge and a little ready cash; and Alexander Minchin settled down to make it, taking for the nonce a furnished house in a modest neighborhood. And here it was that the quarrelling continued to its culmination22 in the scene just ended.
"Not another day," said Rachel, "nor a night—if I can be ready before morning!"
Being still a woman with some strength of purpose, Mrs. Minchin did not stop at idle words. The interval23 between the slamming of doors below and another noise at the top of the house was not one of many minutes. The other noise was made by Rachel and her empty trunk upon the loftiest and the narrowest flight of stairs; one of the maids opened their door an inch.
"I am sorry if I disturbed you," their mistress said. "These stairs are so very narrow. No, thank you, I can manage quite well." And they heard her about until they slept.
It was no light task to which Rachel had set her hand; she was going back to Australia by the first boat, and her packing must be done that night. Her resolve only hardened as her spirit cooled. The sooner her departure, the less his opposition24; let her delay, and the callousness25 of the passing brute26 might give place to the tyranny of the normal man. But she was going, whether or no; not another day—though she would doubtless see its dawn. It was the month of September. And she was not going to fly empty-handed, nor fly at all; she was going deliberately27 away, with a trunk containing all that she should want upon the voyage. The selection was not too easily made. In his better moods the creature had been lavish28 enough; and more than once did Rachel snatch from drawer or wardrobe that which remained some moments in her hand, while the incidents of purchase and the first joys of possession, to one who had possessed29 so little in her life, came back to her with a certain poignancy30.
But her resolve remained unshaken. It might hurt her to take his personal gifts, but that was all she had ever had from him; he had never granted her a set allowance; for every penny she must needs ask and look grateful. It would be no fault of hers if she had to strip her fingers for passage-money. Yet the exigency31 troubled her; it touched her honor, to say nothing of her pride; and, after an unforeseen fit of irresolution32, Rachel suddenly determined33 to tell her husband of her difficulty, making direct appeal to the capricious generosity34 which had been recalled to her mind as an undeniably redeeming35 point. It was true that he had given her hearty36 leave to go to the uttermost ends of the earth, and highly probable that he would bid her work her own way. She felt an impulse to put it to him, however, and at once.
She looked at her watch—it at least had been her mother's—and the final day was already an hour old. But Alexander Minchin was a late sitter, as his young wife knew to her cost, and to-night he had told her where he meant to sleep, but she had not heard him come up. The room would have been the back drawing-room in the majority of such houses, and Rachel peeped in on her way down. It was empty; moreover, the bed was not made, nor the curtains drawn37. Rachel repaired the first omission38, then hesitated, finally creeping upstairs again for clean sheets. And as she made his bed, not out of any lingering love for him, but from a sense of duty and some consideration for his comfort, there was yet something touching in her instinctive39 care, that breathed the wife she could have been.
He did not hear her, though the stairs creaked the smallness of the hour—or if he heard he made no sign. This discouraged Rachel as she stole down the lower flight; she would have preferred the angriest sign. But there were few internal sounds which penetrated40 to the little study at the back of the dining-room, for the permanent tenant41 was the widow of an eminent42 professor lately deceased, and that student had protected his quiet with double doors. The outer one, in dark red baize, made an alarming noise as Rachel pulled it open; but, though she waited, no sound came from within; nor was Minchin disturbed by the final entry of his wife, whose first glance convinced her of the cause. In the professor's armchair sat his unworthy successor, chin on waistcoat, a newspaper across his knees, an empty decanter at one elbow. Something remained in the glass beside the bottle; he had tumbled off before the end. There were even signs of deliberate preparations for slumber43, for the shade was tilted44 over the electric light by which he had been reading, as a hat is tilted over the eyes.
Rachel had a touch of pity at seeing him in a chair for the night; but the testimony45 of the decanter forbade remorse46. She had filled it herself in the evening against her husband's return from an absence of mysterious length. Now she understood that mystery, and her face darkened as she recalled the inconceivable insult which his explanation had embraced. No, indeed; not another minute that she could help! And he would sleep there till all hours of the morning; he had done it before; the longer the better, this time.
She had recoiled47 into the narrow hall, driven by an uncontrollable revulsion; and there she stood, pale and quivering with a disgust that only deepened as she looked her last upon the shaded face and the inanimate frame in the chair. Rachel could not account for the intensity48 of her feeling; it bordered upon nausea49, and for a time prevented her from retracing50 the single step which at length enabled her to shut both doors as quietly as she had opened them, after switching off the light from force of habit. There was another light still glowing in the hall, and, again from habit, Rachel put it out also before setting foot upon the stairs. A moment later she was standing51 terror-stricken in the dark.
It was no sound from the study, but the tiniest of metallic52 rattles53 from the flap of the letter-box in the front door. The wind might have done it, for the flap had lost its spring; and, though the noise was not repeated, to the wind Rachel put it down, as she mounted the stairs at last in a flutter that caused her both shame and apprehension54. Her nerve was going, and she needed it so! It should not go; it should not; and as if to steady it, she opened the landing window, and spent some minutes gazing out into the cool and starry55 night. Not that she could see very far. The backs of houses hid half the stars in front and on either hand, making, with the back of this house and its fellows, a kind of square turned inside out. Miserable56 little gardens glimmered57 through an irregular network of grimy walls, with here and there a fair tree in autumnal tatters; but Rachel looked neither at these nor at the stars that lit them dimly. In a single window of those right opposite a single lamp had burnt all night. It was the only earthly light that Rachel could see, the only one of earth or heaven upon which she looked; and she discovered it with thanksgiving, and tore her eyes away from it with a prayer.
In time the trunk was packed, and incontinently carried downstairs, by an effort which left Rachel racked in every muscle and swaying giddily. But she could not have made much noise, for still there was no sign from the study. She scarcely paused to breathe. A latchkey closed the door behind her very softly; she was in the crisp, clean air at last.
But it was no hour for finding cabs; it was the hour of the scavenger58 and no other being; and Rachel walked into broad sunlight before she spied a solitary59 hansom. It was then she did the strangest thing; instead of driving straight back for her trunk, when near the house she gave the cabman other directions, subsequently stopping him at one with a card in the window.
A woman answered the bell with surprising celerity, and a face first startled and then incensed60 at the sight of Mrs. Minchin.
"So you never came!" cried the woman, bitterly.
"I was prevented," Rachel replied coldly. "Well?"
And the monosyllable was a whisper.
"He is still alive," said the woman at the door.
"Is that all?" asked Rachel, a catch in her voice.
"It is all I'll say till the doctor has been."
"But he has got through the night," sighed Rachel, thankfully. "I could see the light in his room from hour to hour, even though I could not come. Did you sit up with him all night long?"
"Every minute of the night," said the other, with undisguised severity in her fixed61 red eyes. "I never left him, and I never closed a lid."
"I am so sorry!" cried Rachel, too sorry even for renewed indignation at the cause. "But I couldn't help it," she continued, "I really could not. We—I am going abroad—very suddenly. Poor Mr. Severino! I do wish there was anything I could do! But you must get a professional nurse. And when he does recover—for something assures me that he will—you can tell him—"
Rachel hesitated, the red eyes reading hers.
"Tell him I hope he will recover altogether," she said at length; "mind, altogether! I have gone away for good, tell Mr. Severino; but, as I wasn't able to do so after all, I would rather you didn't mention that I ever thought of nursing him, or that I called last thing to ask how he was."
And that was her farewell message to the very young man with whom a hole-and-corner scandal had coupled Rachel Minchin's name; it was to be a final utterance62 in yet another respect, and one of no slight or private significance, as the sequel will show. Within a minute or two of its delivery, Rachel was on her own doorstep for the last time, deftly63 and gently turning the latchkey, while the birds sang to frenzy64 in a neighboring garden, and the early sun glanced fierily65 from the brass66 knocker and letter-box. Another moment and the door had been flung wide open by a police officer, who seemed to fill the narrow hall, with a comrade behind him and both servants on the stairs. And with little further warning Mrs. Minchin was shown her husband, seated much as she had left him in the professor's chair, but with his feet raised stiffly upon another, and the hand of death over every inch of him in the broad north light that filled the room.
The young widow stood gazing upon her dead, and four pairs of eyes gazed yet more closely at her. But there was little to gather from the strained profile with the white cheek and the unyielding lips. Not a cry had left them; she had but crossed the threshold, and stopped that instant in the middle of the worn carpet, the sharpest of silhouettes67 against a background of grim tomes. There was no swaying of the lissome68 figure, no snatching for support, no question spoken or unspoken. In moments of acute surprise the most surprising feature is often the way in which we ourselves receive the shock; a sudden and complete detachment, not the least common of immediate69 results, makes us sometimes even conscious of our failure to feel as we would or should; and it was so with Rachel Minchin in the first moments of her tragic70 freedom. So God had sundered71 whom God had joined together! And this was the man whom she had married for love; and she could look upon his clay unmoved! Her mind leapt to a minor72 consideration, that still made her shudder73, as eight eyes noted74 from the door; he must have been dead when she came down and found him seated in shadow; she had misjudged the dead, if not the living. The pose of the head was unaltered, the chin upon the chest, the mouth closed in death as naturally as in sleep. No wonder his wife had been deceived. And yet there was something unfamiliar75, something negligent76 and noble, and all unlike the living man; so that Rachel could already marvel77 that she had not at once detected this dignity and this distinction, only too foreign to her husband as she had learnt to know him best, but unattainable in the noblest save by death. And her eyes had risen to the slice of sky in the upper half of the window, and at last the tears were rising in her eyes, when they filled instead with sudden horror and enlightenment.
There was a jagged hole in the pane78 above the hasp; an upset of ink on the desk beneath the window; and the ink was drying with the dead man's blood, in which she now perceived him to be soaked, while the newspaper on the floor beside him was crisp as toast from that which it had hidden when she saw him last.
The policemen exchanged a rapid glance.
"Looks like it," said the one who had opened the door, "I admit."
There was a superfluous80 dryness in his tone; but Rachel no more noticed this than the further craning of heads in the doorway81.
"But can you doubt it?" she cried, pointing from the broken window to the spilled ink. "Did you think that he had shot himself?"
And her horror heightened at a thought more terrible to her than all the rest. But the constable82 shook his head.
"We should have found the pistol—which we can't," said he. "But shot he is, and through the heart."
"Then who could it be but thieves?"
"That's what we all want to know," said the officer; and still Rachel had no time to think about his tone; for now she was bending over the body, her white hands clenched83, and agony enough in her white face.
"Look! look!" she cried, beckoning84 to them all. "He was wearing his watch last night; that I can swear; and it has gone!"
"You are sure he was wearing it?" asked the same constable, approaching.
"Absolutely certain."
"Well, if that's so," said he, "and it can't be found, it will be a point in your favor."
Rachel sprang upright, her wet eyes wide with pure astonishment85.
"In my favor?" she cried. "Will you have the goodness to explain yourself?"
The constables86 were standing on either side of her now.
"Well," replied the spokesman of the pair, "I don't like the way that window's broken, for one thing, and if you look at it you'll see what I mean. The broken glass is all outside on the sill. But that's not all, ma'am; and, as you have a cab, we might do worse than drive to the station before more people are about."
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收听单词发音
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1
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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3
blustering
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| adj.狂风大作的，狂暴的v.外强中干的威吓( bluster的现在分词 )；咆哮；（风）呼啸；狂吹 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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armory
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| n.纹章，兵工厂，军械库 | |
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augur
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| n.占卦师；v.占卦 | |
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berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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10
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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affluence
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| n.充裕，富足 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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nomad
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| n.游牧部落的人，流浪者，游牧民 | |
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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15
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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18
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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21
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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culmination
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| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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callousness
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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poignancy
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| n.辛酸事，尖锐 | |
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exigency
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| n.紧急；迫切需要 | |
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irresolution
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| n.不决断，优柔寡断，犹豫不定 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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redeeming
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| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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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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tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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47
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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retracing
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| v.折回( retrace的现在分词 )；回忆；回顾；追溯 | |
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51
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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52
metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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53
rattles
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| （使）发出格格的响声， （使）作嘎嘎声( rattle的第三人称单数 )； 喋喋不休地说话； 迅速而嘎嘎作响地移动，堕下或走动； 使紧张，使恐惧 | |
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54
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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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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57
glimmered
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| v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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scavenger
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| n.以腐尸为食的动物，清扫工 | |
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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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incensed
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| 盛怒的 | |
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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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62
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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fierily
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| 如火地，炽热地，猛烈地 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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67
silhouettes
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| 轮廓( silhouette的名词复数 )； （人的）体形； （事物的）形状； 剪影 | |
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lissome
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| adj.柔软的；敏捷的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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71
sundered
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| v.隔开，分开( sunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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72
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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negligent
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| adj.疏忽的；玩忽的；粗心大意的 | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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81
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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82
constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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83
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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84
beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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85
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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constables
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| n.警察( constable的名词复数 ) | |
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