"Father!" She was sure she called, because she heard her own voice quite clearly; not as it mostly is in dreams, when one hears nothing. But yet he came no closer. Then she saw that he was crying. She called to him again, more eagerly. Then he went, step by step, timidly towards her; until she had her arms about him, and whispered, "Father, tell me what it is that troubles you." And he tried to tell her, but he could not; he was speechless, and to him his speechlessness was agony. If he only could speak she felt that all might be well with him--and with her; but he was tongue-tied. She tried to think of what it could be that he wished to say to her, and to prompt him; whispering into his ear first this, then that; but it was plain that none of her hints had anything to do with what was in his mind, though once she thought that she might not be far off. When she whispered, "Is it about what I am to do in the future?" his face changed; a sort of convulsion passed all over him; he drew himself away from her, and stood up, raising his arms, seeming to make a frenzied1 effort to achieve articulation2; it even seemed that speech had come to him at last, when, just as words were already almost issuing from his lips, he vanished, and she was alone in the darkness.
Not the least strange part of it was that she was wide awake, having no consciousness of being roused out of sleep; she was sitting up in bed, the tears were streaming down her cheeks, her arms were held out, with about them the oddest feeling of somebody having just been in them. Indeed for a moment or two she could not believe that there was not some one in them still. When she did realize that they were empty she threw herself face downwards3 in the bed, crying as if her heart would break, because of her father's woe4.
Donald Lindsay was buried on the Thursday--exactly a week after he had been stricken with his death. On the Tuesday and Wednesday she had variations of the same dream, and on the Thursday, the day of the funeral, it was so terrible a dream that the agony of it remained with her until the morning. For a long time afterwards some form of that dream would come to her at intervals5. She said nothing of it to any one, though there was a moment when she was on the point of speaking of it to Elaine Harding; but she had it sometimes even in her waking thoughts. The course of events induced in her a kind of dormant6 conviction not only that the dream was sent to her for some special purpose, and that it had a meaning; but, also, that some day both the purpose and the meaning would be made clear. She knew that it is written that, of old, God spake to men in dreams; she believed it to be possible that, in a dream, God might speak to her. The dream always ended at the same point: just as her father, after an agonizing7 effort, seemed to be about to speak. She fancied that, some night, it might go on further, and that he might speak to her in his dream, and that with his speaking the purpose and the meaning of it all would be discovered.
On the morning of the funeral, among the other letters, Mrs. Steele, the housekeeper8, called her attention to one in particular. No doubt she was aware that, during the last few days, either letters had been left unopened, or the task of opening them relegated9 to Elaine Harding, who communicated their contents if she pleased.
"Miss Nora," she said, "this is a letter from Mr. Spencer."
The girl caught eagerly at it; it was the first sign of eagerness she had lately shown. So soon as Mrs. Steele had gone she opened it. It was from her lover, Robert Spencer; a long letter, on three closely written sheets of foreign note-paper. He was in Sicily; had sent her a gossipy narrative10 of his wanderings among its ancient places, and among its scenes of beauty. It was full of love, and life, and high spirits; the sort of letter which makes a girl's heart beat happily; which she cherishes amid her most precious possessions. He told her how he wished that she was with him; that she at least was close at hand, that they might see and enjoy, together, what was so much worth seeing, and enjoying. In mischievous11 mood he added that when the great day came, on which the sun would rise in their sky for ever, and they were married, he humbly12 ventured to suggest that part of their honeymoon13 might be spent where he was then--"that would be to invest Taormina, which is already nearly all halos, with another, the brightest and the best."
To a girl's thinking there could be no pleasanter reading than such a letter; she could desire nothing better of the future than that its savour might remain unchanged, and that, throughout the years which were to come, the love of which it was a sign might walk always by her side.
So great was its power that, for a moment, it charmed her to forgetfulness. She saw in it her lover's face, and looked into his eyes; his voice spoke14 to her from the pages, and sounded sweetly in her ears. When he wrote of honeymooning15 the blood came to her cheeks; her lips were parted by a smile; her heart seemed speaking unto his. Even when she remembered, and recalled what day it was, and what shortly was about to happen, the light did not quite fade from her eyes, and the world was not all darkness. The match had been one of the few things respecting which her father had expressed to her his audible satisfaction. It was tacitly understood that the marriage was to take place during the current year. Both lovers were young--Robert Spencer had only just turned twenty-four. The only thing which could be said against him was his lack of means. He had done well both at school and at the university. Without being the least bit of a prig, he was exempt16 from those vices17 which the facile standard of the world in which he lived associates with youth. He was tall and strong and handsome; easy-mannered, more than is apt to be the case with the young Englishman of twenty-four; of fluent speech--he had been, in his time, one of the stars of the union; there was no apparent reason why he should not make for himself, among the men of his own generation, a great name for good. The chief obstacle with which he would have to contend might be, as has been said, the eternal question of pence.
He was the fourth, and youngest, son of the Earl of Mountdennis. Everybody knows that his lordship had more children than money; four sons and five daughters is a liberal allowance for any man; the Earl and the Countess have that number living, and three of their children are dead. At the period of which we are writing all the five daughters were married, though by no means, from their mother's point of view, all satisfactorily married. The Countess never attempted to conceal18 the fact that only the first and third had done really well for themselves. According to the same authority, the boys had not done all that they might have done; the heir, Lord Cookham, in particular, had been a bitter disappointment, having been--his mother called it--wicked enough to marry a girl who had no money, and, practically, no family, merely because he loved her. He had been perfectly19 well aware that, in his case, marriage must mean money; it had been drummed into his ears from his earliest childhood;--family was of no consequence; he had family enough of his own. The one thing wanted was money--sacks full. And the thing was made more cruel by the fact that he might have had any amount of money, had he chosen. He might have had an English girl with a hundred thousand a year, to say nothing of several Americans with a great deal more; instead of which he married a young woman whom he met, as the Countess put it, at "some horrid20 foreign place," whose only qualification was that she was generally admitted, by some excellent judges, to be delightful21. What, as the Countess pungently22 inquired, was the use of being delightful if she and her husband had not enough money between them to pay off the family debts, to say nothing of keeping up the family seats. And then they actually started by having three children in less than six years--all girls. It was too perfectly ridiculously absurd!
Montagu, the second son, had refused to marry at all, so his mother said; though it was not known that any girls had ever actually asked him. It was understood that he had made money in Africa, though he showed not the slightest inclination23 to squander24 it among his relatives; he had even declined to what his mother termed "lend" her five thousand pounds to be spent on "doing up" Holtye, which was the seat the Earl and the Countess principally favoured. Such conduct, she declared, was inhuman25, but "so like Montagu." Arthur, the third son, had done best for himself from at least a financial point of view. He had married Mrs. Parkes-Peters, the widow of the contractor26 who left three millions. It was true that nasty things had been said of some of his most successful contracts; but, after all, the man was dead. It was also true that no one knew who, or what, his widow was before he married her; it was, if possible, even more true that she was older than her second husband. She herself admitted that she was his senior by ten years--the world said it ought to be twenty. But as she proved to be an ideal wife from the point of view of the man who marries for money, such trifles could hardly be said to count. Their friends asserted that she gave him a thousand pounds every time he kissed her--really no husband could want more.
And yet both his parents were aware that one need not be hypercritical to be able to see objections even against Arthur's wife. There remained, therefore, to them but one hope--their fourth son, Robert. Theirs must have been a sanguine27 temperament--when one knew them one felt as if they had only one between them--because, after all their disappointments, they still built on him a castle in Spain, of their own design. It really seemed as if that castle was to be actually reared. Robert had set his affections on Miss Lindsay, and that without the least prompting from either of them; as they knew, from painful experience, in such cases one sometimes had to do such a lot of prompting. They frankly28 admitted that, looking at the matter as a whole, he could hardly have been expected to do better--to begin with. Cloverlea was quite a nice place, and, as it were, next door to Holtye; there were only nine miles between them. It was kept up in excellent style; the Earl, who was supposed to know something about such things, assured his wife that it probably cost Donald Lindsay at least ten thousand a-year. It was true that its owner was by way of being a curiosity; but then his eccentricities--if they could be called eccentricities--were not of a kind which would be likely to injure his daughter. And she was his only child. In her capacity of young woman nothing whatever could be urged against her; the Earl and Countess were entirely29 at one in agreeing with Robert that, in that respect, she was all that there was of the most charming. Obviously, when her father died, she would be more than comfortably off. The only thing to be considered was, what would she have until he died--in case she took unto herself a husband. On this point, also, everything was as it should be.
The Earl rode over to Cloverlea one day, when its master happened to be at home, and had a talk with him--than which nothing could be more satisfactory. Lindsay told his visitor, in that plain outspoken30 way of his, that he was satisfied with the result of inquiries31 he had been making about the Hon. Robert, and that, in consequence, five thousand a year would be settled on Nora if he married her. Besides this, he would present her, as a wedding gift, with a suitable house in town, and all the furniture. He added, with one of his rare, grim smiles, which the earl interpreted in a fashion of his own, that it was possible that one day she would be much richer than people thought.
The Earl told the Countess, on his return to Holtye, that he should not be surprised if the man was a millionaire. Anyhow his offer was most generous; especially as Robert was the youngest of nine, and had, literally32, nothing but himself and his family to bring his wife. The Countess wondered vaguely33 if, on the strength of the matrimonial alliance which was to unite the two families, Mr. Lindsay might not be induced to advance what she described as "something decent" in order that something might be done to Holtye, which was falling to pieces, and where the furniture was in a scandalous condition. The Earl, who knew that his wife had been searching for years for some one who would play the part of fairy prince towards their family domain34, merely remarked that it would be time enough to think of all that kind of thing when the pair were married.
Nora had not been actually informed of the arrangements which had been made for the commercial success of her love-match, but she knew quite well that it never would have entered the domain of practical politics if they had not been satisfactory. Robert was perfectly frank upon the point; he was frank with her about everything; it was his nature to be frank. He told her that he had not a shilling of his own, and never had.
"My aunt paid for me at Eton, and, afterwards, at the 'Varsity; so far as I know, she's paid for me ever since I was born; I believe she's even bought my clothes. I don't know why, because we're not a bit in sympathy; though she's a dear, on lines of her own, which are peculiar35. She's only just on speaking terms with my mother, who's her own sister; and the things she says of my father are dreadful--he's really the most inoffensive of men. She has never lived in England since I can remember; she says she can't afford it. The truth is, she's never happy except in pursuit of her health; she passes from one 'cure' place to another, in possession of a number of complaints which nobody understands, but which suit her constitution admirably. She has about two thousand a year of her own, and spends most of it on doctors; though she declares, to their faces, that she never met one yet who knew what he is talking about. Out of what is left after the doctors are paid she is at present allowing me three hundred pounds a year, which is very good of her; especially considering two facts, the one being that I really have no claim on her at all, and the other that the three hundred is sometimes nearly four; for instance, last year she gave me fifty pounds as a birthday present, and twenty-five as a Christmas-box. So you see that I really am a pauper36, living upon charity, and that I never ought to have dared to love you at all; only I couldn't help it--who could?"
She had laughed at him.
"Lots of people. Of course, it's very sad that you should be so poor; but I dare say, if we are careful, we can manage; and you know there is such a thing as love in a cottage--would the prospect37 of such a fate as that seem to you so very frightful38?"
"Frightful! I wouldn't mind it a bit; would you?"
"I dare say I could put up with it for a time."
"It should only be for a time, I promise you. I'm handicapped by being who I am, but I don't think I'm an utter fool. I've always taken it for granted that I should have to make my own way, and, to the best of my ability, I've provided myself with the necessary tools; I believe that I could make my own way in the world as well as another man. You have only to say the word, and I'll make it first and woo you afterwards."
"Thank you; I'm content with things as they are; I'm sorry you're not."
This was said with a twinkle in her eyes which was meant to provoke him to warmth, and it did.
"Nora! do you wish me to--shake you?"
"I don't mind."
He did do something to her; but she was not shaken.
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1
frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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articulation
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| n.（清楚的）发音；清晰度，咬合 | |
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downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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5
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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relegated
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| v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 )；使降职；转移；把…归类 | |
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10
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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13
honeymoon
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| n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月 | |
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14
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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honeymooning
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| 度蜜月（honeymoon的现在分词形式） | |
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exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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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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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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pungently
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| adv.苦痛地，尖锐地 | |
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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squander
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| v.浪费，挥霍 | |
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inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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contractor
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| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
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27
sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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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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30
outspoken
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| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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31
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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32
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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34
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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pauper
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| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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