The Tempest.
About this time Jean wrote a letter to David at Oxford1. It is wonderful how much news there is when people write every other day; if they wait for a month there is nothing that seems worth telling.
Jean wrote:
" … You have been away now for four days, and we still miss you badly. Nobody sits in your place at the table, and it gives us such a horrid2 bereaved3 feeling when we look at it. Mhor was waiting at the gate for the post yesterday and brought your letter in in triumph. He was particularly interested in hearing about your scout4, and has added his name to the list he prays for. You will be glad to hear that he has got over his prejudice against going to heaven. It seems it was because someone told him that dogs couldn't go there, and he wouldn't desert Micawber—Peter, in other words. Jock has put it right by telling him that the translators of the Bible probably made a slip, and Mhor now prays earnestly every night: 'Let everyone in The Rigs go to heaven,' hoping thus to smuggle5 in his dear companion.
"It is an extraordinary thing, but almost the very minute you left
Priorsford things began to happen.
"I told you in the note I wrote the day you left that Bella Bathgate's lodger6 had arrived and that I had seen her, but I didn't realise then what a difference her coming would make to us. I never knew such a friendly person; she comes in at any sort of time—after breakfast, a few minutes before luncheon7, for tea, between nine and ten at night. Did I tell you her name is Pamela Reston, and her brother, who seems to be ranging about India somewhere, is Lord Bidborough ('A lord-no-less,' as Mrs. M'Cosh would say). She calls him Biddy, and seems devoted8 to him.
"Although she is horribly rich and an 'honourable,' and all that sort of thing, she isn't in the least grand. She never impresses one with her opulence9 as, for instance, Mrs. Duff-Whalley does. Her clothes are beautiful, but so much a part of her personality that you never think of them. Her pearls don't hit you in the face as most other people's do. Because she is so unconscious of them, I suppose. I think she is lovely. Jock says she is like a greyhound, and I know what he means—it is the long, swift, graceful10 way she has of moving. She says she is forty. I always thought forty was quite old, but now it seems to me the very prettiest age. Age doesn't really matter at all to people who have got faces and figures and manners like Pamela Reston. They will always make whatever age they are seem the perfect age.
"I do wonder what brings her to Priorsford! I rather think that having been all her life so very 'twopence coloured' she wants the 'penny plain' for a change. Perhaps that is why she likes The Rigs and us. There is no mistake about our 'penny-plainness'—it jumps to the eye!
"I am just afraid she won't stay very long. There are so many pretty little houses in Priorsford, and so many kind and forthcoming landladies11, it was bad luck that she should choose Hillview and Bella Bathgate. Bella is almost like a stage-caricature of a Scotswoman, so dour12 she is and uncompromising and she positively13 glories in the drab ugliness of her rooms. Ugliness means to Bella respectability; any attempt at adornment14 is 'daft-like.'
"Pamela (she has asked me to call her that) trembles before her, and that makes Bella worse. She wants someone to stand up to her, to laugh at her grimness; she simply thinks when Pamela is charming to her that she is a poor creature.
"She is charming to everyone, this lodger of Bella's. Jock and Mhor and Mrs. M'Cosh are all at her feet. She brings us books and papers and chocolates and fruit, and makes us feel we are conferring the favour by accepting them. She is a real charmer, for when she speaks to you she makes you feel that no one matters to her but just you yourself. And she is simple (or at least appears to be); she hasn't that Now-I-am-going-to-be-charming manner that is so difficult to bear. It is such fun talking to her, for she is very—pliable I think is the word I want. Accustomed to converse15 with people who constantly pull one up short with an 'Ah, now I don't agree,' or 'There, I think you are quite wrong,' it is wonderfully soothing16 to discuss things with someone who has the air of being convinced by one's arguments. It is weak, I know, but I'm afraid I agree with Mrs. M'Cosh, who described a friend as 'a rale nice buddy17. She clinks wi' every word ye say.'
"I am thinking to myself how Great-aunt Alison would have dreaded18 Pamela's influence. She would have seen in her the personification of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil—albeit she would have been much impressed by her long descent: dear Aunt Alison.
"All the same, Davie, it is odd what an effect one's early training has. D'you remember how discouraged G.-A. Alison was about our levity—especially mine? She once said bitterly that I was like the ell-woman—hollow—because I laughed in the middle of the Bible lesson. And how antiquated19 and stuffy20 we thought her views, and took pleasure in assuring ourselves that we had got far beyond them, and you spent an evening tea-less in your room because you said you would rather be a Buddhist21 than a Disruption Worthy—do you remember that?
"Yes, but Great-aunt Alison had builded better than she knew. When Pamela laughs 'How Biblical!' or says in her pretty, soft voice that our great-aunt's religion must have been a hard and ugly thing, I get hot with anger and feel I must stick unswervingly to the antiquated views. Is it because poor Great-aunt isn't here to make me? I don't know.
"Mhor is really surprisingly naughty. Yesterday I heard angry shouts from the road, and then I met Mhor sauntering in, on his face the seraphic expression he wears when some nefarious22 scheme has prospered23, and in his hand the brass24 breakfast kettle. He had been pouring water on the passers-by from the top of the wall. 'Only,' he explained to me, 'on the men who wore hard black hats, who could swear.'
"I told him the police would probably visit us in the course of the afternoon, and pointed25 out to him how ungentleman-like was his behaviour, and he said he was sorry; but I'm afraid he will soon think of some other wickedness.
"He thinks he can do anything he hasn't been told not to do, but how could I foresee that he would want to pour water on men with hard black hats, capable of swearing?
"I had almost forgotten to tell you, an old man came yesterday and wanted to see over the house. You can imagine what a scare I got—I made sure he wanted to buy it; but it turned out that he had lived at The Rigs as a boy, and had come back for old sake's sake. He looked ill and rather shabby, and I don't believe life had been very good to him. I did want to try and make up a little, but he was difficult. He was staying at the Temperance, and it seemed so forlorn that he should have no one of his own to come home to. He didn't look as if anybody had ever made a fuss of him. I asked him to stay with us for a week, but he wouldn't. I think he thought I was rather mad to ask him, and Pamela laughed at me about it…. She laughs at me a good deal and calls me a 'sentimentalist.' …
"There is the luncheon bell.
"We are longing26 for your letter to-morrow to hear how you are settling down. Mrs. M'Cosh has baked some shortbread for you, which I shall post this afternoon.
"Love from each of us, and Peter.—Your
"JEAN."
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1
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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2
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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3
bereaved
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| adj.刚刚丧失亲人的v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的过去式和过去分词)；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物） | |
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4
scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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smuggle
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| vt.私运；vi.走私 | |
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6
lodger
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| n.寄宿人，房客 | |
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7
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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8
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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9
opulence
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| n.财富，富裕 | |
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10
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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11
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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12
dour
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| adj.冷酷的，严厉的；（岩石）嶙峋的；顽强不屈 | |
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13
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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14
adornment
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| n.装饰；装饰品 | |
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15
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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16
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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17
buddy
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| n.（美口）密友，伙伴 | |
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18
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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19
antiquated
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| adj.陈旧的，过时的 | |
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stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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21
Buddhist
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| adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒 | |
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22
nefarious
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| adj.恶毒的，极坏的 | |
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23
prospered
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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25
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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