“Anne,” said Muriel suddenly, glancing at her from beneath lowered eyelashes, “I believe I owe you a confession3 and an apology.”
“I wasn’t,” confessed Muriel, “one bit ill when I wrote to you. I was only mentally sick because I wanted Tommy, and he had to go away on horrid5 business where I couldn’t accompany him—at least, he said I couldn’t; and that comes to the same thing—with Tommy.” Muriel heaved a prodigious6 sigh.
“Darling!” laughed Anne.
Muriel wrinkled her porcelain-like brows. “Oh, Anne, life is heavenly! There’s only just one long big beautiful moment with me and love and Tommy. But there are ten million years of purgatory7 to get through when he is away from me, and then I’m soul-sick. And I tell myself I’m a sentimental8 little fool, but it doesn’t do one bit of good. So I wrote to you to come to me till Patricia, who is a cheerful soul, can join me. And I didn’t want to tell you it was sheer silly loneliness, so I told you a little white lie,” she ended tragically9.
“Did you?” Muriel was half incredulous.
“Yes; your letter just breathed ‘I want Tommy’ all through it. And as a kind of postscript11 it added, ‘But you’re better than nothing to this poor moping person, so for Heaven’s sake come.’”
“And I,” murmured Muriel pathetically, “thought my letter the height of diplomatic lying.”
“On the contrary,” Anne assured her, “it was as transparent12 as a crystal bowl.”
For a few moments there was a silence. The [Pg 145]warm sun was pouring through the open window, falling across the bed and the slightly tumbled bedclothes, and glinting on the fair hair of the woman who lay among the pillows. Strictly13 speaking, Muriel Lancing was not beautiful, she was not even pretty. But there was an odd charm about her thin little face, her great grey-green eyes, and her wide mouth. She had a curious, almost elfin-like appearance. She was not at all unlike Arthur Rackham’s pictures of Undine as she lay there in some flimsy and diaphanous14 garment suggestive of sea-foam. Herself—her whole surroundings—held a suggestion of elusiveness15, a kind of cobwebby grace and charm. Tommy—adored of Muriel—once said that the house was like an oyster-shell, rough and ugly on the outside, but inside all soft and shimmery16 with a pearl in it. It was his most brilliantly poetical17 effusion, and never likely to be surpassed by him. The only single thing in the room that struck an incongruous note was a large—a very large—photograph frame on a table by Muriel’s bed. It was a rough wooden frame, distinctly crooked18, and with the glue showing somewhat in the corners. It held a [Pg 146]full-length photograph of an ugly, snub-nosed, but quite delightful-faced young man with a wide mouth and an appearance that rightly suggested red hair and freckles19. This was the adored Tommy, and the frame was his own manufacture. Next to the man himself they were Muriel’s most treasured possessions.
Anne looked across at it. She had often seen it before, but finding it difficult to discover the most tactful observation to make regarding it, had refrained from making any. This time, however, Muriel seemed to notice the direction of Anne’s eyes.
“Tommy made it himself,” she said, stretching out one white arm, from which a flimsy covering of lace and gauze-like material fell away, disclosing its slender roundness. She moved the frame to an angle better calculated to show off its superior qualities.
“Really!” said Anne, politely incredulous, but understanding. It explained what had hitherto been a cause for wonderment, namely, why Muriel should choose to disfigure her room with such a piece of furniture. Its size almost calls for the designation.
“Yes,” said Muriel proudly, “himself. I think,” she continued, contemplating22 the picture with her head at as one-sided an angle as her recumbent position would allow, “that it is a beautiful frame.” There was the faintest suspicion of a challenge in her voice.
“I am quite sure,” said Anne in a perfectly23 grave voice, “that you could not possibly have a frame which you would value more. I know I couldn’t if I happened to be you.”
Muriel laughed like a contented24 child. “Anne, you’re several kinds of angels, and you have the heavenliest way of saying the right thing and yet speaking the truth. Of course I know that its sides are crooked, and that there are little mountains of glue in the corners. But you should have seen Tommy’s face when he brought it to me. The darling was so afraid it was not of quite the most finished workmanship. Oh, Anne, between the comicality of his face and the lop-sided expression of the sticky frame—the glue wasn’t quite dry—and the little lump in my own throat for the darlingness of the thought, I very nearly had hysterics. But I hid them on Tommy’s waistcoat, and I adore the frame.”
“Of course,” said Anne, smiling.
“What do you think of General Carden? He monopolized26 you in the most disgraceful way last night.”
“I liked him,” returned Anne, calmly ignoring the question of monopoly. “It is delightfully27 refreshing28 to meet a man so entirely29 of the old school of thought and manners.”
“I think he’s quite a dear,” returned Muriel comfortably. “I’ve known him since I was in short frocks and a pigtail. He was a friend of my father’s. They were at Harrow together and afterwards in the same regiment30 in India. He thinks me—well, just a little flighty, but he doesn’t altogether hate me; and he’s quite paternally31 fond of Tommy,” she ended with a gay little laugh.
“By the way,” asked Anne, curious, “why does he so dislike Millicent Sheldon? It is quite obvious he does dislike her.”
Muriel gave a little start. Then she looked at Anne, doubtful, hesitating. “Oh, my dear Anne, don’t you know? Somehow I fancied that every one—” She stopped.
“Know what?” queried Anne idly, but interested.
“It’s really gossip—if true things are gossip,” said Muriel half apologetically; “still, some one is sure to tell you sooner or later since you’ve met General Carden.” Again she stopped.
“But tell me what!” demanded Anne. “Since you’ve said so much, had you not better give me the rest? Besides, since you say some one is sure to tell me, why not let me hear the story from you? You can sweeten it, add sugar and cream, if you will, or vinegar and spice, if those ingredients will flavour it better.”
Muriel laughed. “I’ll omit the garnishings; you shall have the facts plain and simple. Millicent was once upon a time engaged to General Carden’s son. Then—for certain reasons—she threw him over, and married the highly respectable and bald-headed Theobald Horatio Sheldon, whose money—of which he has a very considerable quantity—was made by inventing those little brush things that are fixed32 on behind carts and sweep up the dirt in the roads.”
“I see,” mused33 Anne, comprehending. “But of course, as I had never met General Carden before, I naturally did not know that he possessed34 a son. He did not, either, happen to mention him to me.”
“But of course not,” said Muriel tragically. “That’s exactly where the reasons and the real gossip come in. He spent three years in Portland prison for forgery35, or embezzlement36, or something of the kind. He’s out now, but he was in.”
“Oh!” said Anne seriously.
“And,” ended Muriel, still more tragically, “General Carden has never seen his son again nor forgiven Millicent for throwing him over. It’s rather contradictory37, isn’t it?”
Anne looked down into the street where a flower-girl was standing21 on the pavement with a basket full of great white lilies. She contemplated38 her for a few moments in silence, and seemingly drew conclusions from the flowers. She looked round again at Muriel.
“I think I understand,” she said quietly.
“No,” said Anne calmly. “He loves his son and has never forgotten him. She has forgotten [Pg 151]him and probably never loved him. That’s why he can’t forgive her.”
“Oh!” said Muriel. “I’m sure you’re right that he has not forgotten. He’s eating his heart out for him, or I’m much mistaken, and he’s too proud to own it by the quiver of an eyelash. We women have the easier time. It’s our rôle to keep our arms and hearts open to sinners, and thank Heaven for it.”
Anne was again looking at the flowers. She had said she understood, but in reality it was only partly. She did understand General Carden, but Millicent with her serious speeches on nobility and bigness of character was another matter. She voiced her perplexity to Muriel.
“Oh, but Millicent!” said Muriel in a tone that quite disposed of the question.
“Yet,” said Anne, “Millicent has always talked as if she would help any one re-make his life, as if it were the one thing she would do, and—” She broke off.
Muriel gurgled. “Oh, Anne darling, you’re so big-minded and truthful—in spite of your occasional woman-of-the-world airs, which are only a veneer—that you accept people at their own valuation. The things that people say they will do are the very things that at a crucial moment they do not do. I think crucial moments are a kind of revolution which turns the other side of the person completely to the fore20.” And then her tone changed to one of solemn warning. “You, Anne, doubtless consider yourself a luxury-loving woman, to whom the bare prospect41 of coarse underclothes, cold rooms, ill-cooked food, and commonplace surroundings would be appalling42. Yet I firmly believe that if the crucial moment came you would tramp the roads with your man.”
“Mmm!” said Anne. And that rose colour stole into the ivory of her face, a colour not unnoticed by the watchful43 eyes of Muriel. “Perhaps, the roads; but do you think it would carry me to a suburban44 house with a glass fanlight over the front door? It would be the bigger test. But, and there I think you’ve omitted a point, how about the second moment, the moment when the crucial moment is passed?”
Muriel raised herself on one arm and spoke firmly. “Love—real love—is one long crucial moment. I speak from experience because I love Tommy.” She tumbled flat again among her pillows, and looked across at Anne to challenge her experience if she dared.
Anne, being of course an unmarried woman with no experience of the kind, merely smiled, a tiny smile which ended in a half sigh.
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1
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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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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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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purgatory
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| n.炼狱；苦难；adj.净化的，清洗的 | |
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8
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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tragically
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| adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地 | |
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10
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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11
postscript
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| n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明 | |
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12
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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diaphanous
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| adj.(布)精致的，半透明的 | |
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15
elusiveness
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| 狡诈 | |
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shimmery
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| adj.微微发亮的 | |
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poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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18
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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19
freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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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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22
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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23
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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26
monopolized
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| v.垄断( monopolize的过去式和过去分词 )；独占；专卖；专营 | |
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27
delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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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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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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paternally
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| adv.父亲似地；父亲一般地 | |
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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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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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34
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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35
forgery
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| n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为） | |
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embezzlement
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| n.盗用，贪污 | |
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contradictory
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| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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38
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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39
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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40
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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41
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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42
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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43
watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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44
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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