“Louisa!” roared my father down the kitchen stairs, “are you all asleep? Here have I had to answer the front door myself.” Then my father strode into his office, and the door slammed. My father could be very angry when nobody was by.
Quarter of an hour later his bell rang with a quick, authoritative1 jangle. My mother, who was peeling potatoes with difficulty in wash-leather gloves, looked at my aunt who was shelling peas. The bell rang again louder still this time.
“You go, Paul,” said my mother; “say that Louisa—” but with the words a sudden flush overspread my mother's face, and before I could lay down my slate3 she had drawn4 off her gloves and had passed me. “No, don't stop your lessons, I'll go myself,” she said, and ran out.
A few minutes later the kitchen door opened softly, and my mother's hand, appearing through the jar, beckoned5 to me mysteriously.
“Walk on your toes,” whispered my mother, setting the example as she led the way up the stairs; which after the manner of stairs showed their disapproval6 of deception7 by creaking louder and more often than under any other circumstances; and in this manner we reached my parents' bedroom, where, in the old-fashioned wardrobe, relic8 of better days, reposed9 my best suit of clothes, or, to be strictly10 grammatical, my better.
Never before had I worn these on a week-day morning, but all conversation not germane11 to the question of getting into them quickly my mother swept aside; and when I was complete, down even to the new shoes—Bluchers, we called them in those days—took me by the hand, and together we crept down as we had crept up, silent, stealthy and alert. My mother led me to the street door and opened it.
“Shan't I want my cap?” I whispered. But my mother only shook her head and closed the door with a bang; and then the explanation of the pantomime came to me, for with such “business”—comic, shall I call it, or tragic12?—I was becoming familiar; and, my mother's hand upon my shoulder, we entered my father's office.
Whether from the fact that so often of an evening—our drawing-room being reserved always as a show-room in case of chance visitors; Cowper's poems, open face-downwards on the wobbly loo table; the half-finished crochet13 work, suggestive of elegant leisure, thrown carelessly over the arm of the smaller easy-chair—this office would become our sitting-room14, its books and papers, as things of no account, being huddled15 out of sight; or whether from the readiness with which my father would come out of it at all times to play at something else—at cricket in the back garden on dry days or ninepins in the passage on wet, charging back into it again whenever a knock sounded at the front door, I cannot say. But I know that as a child it never occurred to me to regard my father's profession as a serious affair. To me he was merely playing there, surrounded by big books and bundles of documents, labelled profusely16 but consisting only of blank papers; by japanned tin boxes, lettered imposingly17, but for the most part empty. “Sutton Hampden, Esq.,” I remember was practically my mother's work-box. The “Drayton Estates” yielded apparently18 nothing but apples, a fruit of which my father was fond; while “Mortgages” it was not until later in life I discovered had no connection with poems in manuscript, some in course of correction, others completed.
Now, as the door opened, he rose and came towards us. His hair stood up from his head, for it was a habit of his to rumple19 it as he talked; and this added to his evident efforts to compose his face into an expression of businesslike gravity, added emphasis, if such were needed, to the suggestion of the over long schoolboy making believe.
“This is the youngster,” said my father, taking me from my mother, and passing me on. “Tall for his age, isn't he?”
With a twist of his thick lips, he rolled the evil-smelling cigar he was smoking from the left corner of his mouth to the right; and held out a fat and not too clean hand, which, as it closed round mine, brought to my mind the picture of the walrus20 in my natural history book; with the other he flapped me kindly21 on the head.
“Like 'is mother, wonderfully like 'is mother, ain't 'e?” he observed, still holding my hand. “And that,” he added with a wink22 of one of his small eyes towards my father, “is about the 'ighest compliment I can pay 'im, eh?”
His eyes were remarkably23 small, but marvellously bright and piercing; so much so that when he turned them again upon me I tried to think quickly of something nice about him, feeling sure that he could see right into me.
“And where are you thinkin' of sendin' 'im?” he continued; “Eton or 'Arrow?”
“We haven't quite made up our minds as yet,” replied my father; “at present we are educating him at home.”
“You take my tip,” said the fat man, “and learn all you can. Look at me! If I'd 'ad the opportunity of being a schollard I wouldn't be here offering your father an extravagant25 price for doin' my work; I'd be able to do it myself.”
“You seem to have got on very well without it,” laughed my father; and in truth his air of prosperity might have justified26 greater self-complacency. Rings sparkled on his blunt fingers, and upon the swelling27 billows of his waistcoat rose and sank a massive gold cable.
“But you look very clever,” I said; and though divining with a child's cuteness that it was desired I should make a favourable29 impression upon him, I hoped this would please him, the words were yet spontaneous.
“Well, old Noel Hasluck's not exactly a fool,” he assented31, “but I'd like myself better if I could talk about something else than business, and didn't drop my aitches. And so would my little gell.”
“You have a daughter?” asked my mother, with whom a child, as a bond of sympathy with the stranger took the place assigned by most women to disrespectful cooks and incompetent32 housemaids.
“I won't tell you about 'er. But I'll just bring 'er to see you now and then, ma'am, if you don't mind,” answered Mr. Hasluck. “She don't often meet gentle-folks, an' it'll do 'er good.”
My mother glanced across at my father, but the man, intercepting33 her question, replied to it himself.
“You needn't be afraid, ma'am, that she's anything like me,” he assured her quite good-temperedly; “nobody ever believes she's my daughter, except me and the old woman. She's a little lady, she is. Freak o' nature, I call it.”
“We shall be delighted,” explained my mother.
“Well, you will when you see 'er,” replied Mr. Hasluck, quite contentedly34.
He pushed half-a-crown into my hand, overriding35 my parents' susceptibilities with the easy good-temper of a man accustomed to have his way in all things.
“No squanderin' it on the 'eathen,” was his parting injunction as I left the room; “you spend that on a Christian36 tradesman.”
It was the first money I ever remember having to spend, that half-crown of old Hasluck's; suggestions of the delights to be derived37 from a new pair of gloves for Sunday, from a Latin grammar, which would then be all my own, and so on, having hitherto displaced all less exalted38 visions concerning the disposal of chance coins coming into my small hands. But on this occasion I was left free to decide for myself.
The anxiety it gave me! the long tossing hours in bed! the tramping of the bewildering streets! Even advice when asked for was denied me.
“You must learn to think for yourself,” said my father, who spoke39 eloquently41 on the necessity of early acquiring sound judgment42 and what he called “commercial aptitude43.”
“No, dear,” said my mother, “Mr. Hasluck wanted you to spend it as you like. If I told you, that would be spending it as I liked. Your father and I want to see what you will do with it.”
The good little boys in the books bought presents or gave away to people in distress44. For this I hated them with the malignity45 the lower nature ever feels towards the higher. I consulted my aunt Fan.
“If somebody gave you half-a-crown,” I put it to her, “what would you buy with it?”
“Side-combs,” said my aunt; she was always losing or breaking her side-combs.
“But I mean if you were me,” I explained.
“Drat the child!” said my aunt; “how do I know what he wants if he don't know himself? Idiot!”
The shop windows into which I stared, my nose glued to the pane46! The things I asked the price of! The things I made up my mind to buy and then decided47 that I wouldn't buy! Even my patient mother began to show signs of irritation48. It was rapidly assuming the dimensions of a family curse, was old Hasluck's half-crown.
Then one day I made up my mind, and so ended the trouble. In the window of a small plumber49's shop in a back street near, stood on view among brass50 taps, rolls of lead piping and cistern51 requisites52, various squares of coloured glass, the sort of thing chiefly used, I believe, for lavatory53 doors and staircase windows. Some had stars in the centre, and others, more elaborate, were enriched with designs, severe but inoffensive. I purchased a dozen of these, the plumber, an affable man who appeared glad to see me, throwing in two extra out of sheer generosity54.
Why I bought them I did not know at the time, and I do not know now. My mother cried when she saw them. My father could get no further than: “But what are you going to do with them?” to which I was unable to reply. My aunt, alone, attempted comfort.
“If a person fancies coloured glass,” said my aunt, “then he's a fool not to buy coloured glass when he gets the chance. We haven't all the same tastes.”
In the end, I cut myself badly with them and consented to their being thrown into the dust-bin. But looking back, I have come to regard myself rather as the victim of Fate than of Folly55. Many folks have I met since, recipients56 of Hasluck's half-crowns—many a man who has slapped his pocket and blessed the day he first met that “Napoleon of Finance,” as later he came to be known among his friends—but it ever ended so; coloured glass and cut fingers. Is it fairy gold that he and his kind fling round? It would seem to be.
Next time old Hasluck knocked at our front door a maid in cap and apron57 opened it to him, and this was but the beginning of change. New oilcloth glistened58 in the passage. Lace curtains, such as in that neighbourhood were the hall-mark of the plutocrat, advertised our rising fortunes to the street, and greatest marvel24 of all, at least to my awed59 eyes, my father's Sunday clothes came into weekday wear, new ones taking their place in the great wardrobe that hitherto had been the stronghold of our gentility; to which we had ever turned for comfort when rendered despondent60 by contemplation of the weakness of our outer walls. “Seeing that everything was all right” is how my mother would explain it. She would lay the lilac silk upon the bed, fondly soothing61 down its rustling62 undulations, lingering lovingly over its deep frosted flounces of rich Honiton. Maybe she had entered the room weary looking and depressed63, but soon there would proceed from her a gentle humming as from some small winged thing when the sun first touches it and warms it, and sometimes by the time the Indian shawl, which could go through a wedding ring, but never would when it was wanted to, had been refolded and fastened again with the great cameo brooch, and the poke40 bonnet64, like some fractious child, shaken and petted into good condition, she would be singing softly to herself, nodding her head to the words: which were generally to the effect that somebody was too old and somebody else too bold and another too cold, “so he wouldn't do for me;” and stepping lightly as though the burden of the years had fallen from her.
One evening—it was before the advent65 of this Hasluck—I remember climbing out of bed, for trouble was within me. Creatures, indescribable but heavy, had sat upon my chest, after which I had fallen downstairs, slowly and reasonably for the first few hundred flights, then with haste for the next million miles or so, until I found myself in the street with nothing on but my nightshirt. Personally, I was shocked, but nobody else seemed to mind, and I hailed a two-penny 'bus and climbed in. But when I tried to pay I found I hadn't any pockets, so I jumped out and ran away and the conductor came after me. My feet were like lead, and with every step he gained on me, till with a scream I made one mighty66 effort and awoke.
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1
authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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2
enquired
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| 打听( enquire的过去式和过去分词 )； 询问； 问问题； 查问 | |
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3
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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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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beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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6
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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8
relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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9
reposed
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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10
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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germane
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| adj.关系密切的，恰当的 | |
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12
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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13
crochet
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| n.钩针织物；v.用钩针编制 | |
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14
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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15
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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16
profusely
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| ad.abundantly | |
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17
imposingly
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18
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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19
rumple
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| v.弄皱，弄乱；n.褶纹，皱褶 | |
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20
walrus
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| n.海象 | |
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21
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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22
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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23
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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24
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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25
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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26
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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28
grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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29
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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30
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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31
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32
incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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33
intercepting
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| 截取（技术），截接 | |
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34
contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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35
overriding
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| a.最主要的 | |
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36
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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37
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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38
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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39
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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40
poke
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| n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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41
eloquently
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| adv. 雄辩地(有口才地, 富于表情地) | |
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42
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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43
aptitude
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| n.(学习方面的)才能，资质，天资 | |
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44
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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45
malignity
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| n.极度的恶意，恶毒；（病的）恶性 | |
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46
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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47
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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48
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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49
plumber
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| n.(装修水管的)管子工 | |
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50
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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51
cistern
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| n.贮水池 | |
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52
requisites
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| n.必要的事物( requisite的名词复数 ) | |
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53
lavatory
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| n.盥洗室，厕所 | |
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54
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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55
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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56
recipients
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| adj.接受的；受领的；容纳的；愿意接受的n.收件人；接受者；受领者；接受器 | |
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57
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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58
glistened
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| v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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59
awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60
despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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61
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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62
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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63
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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64
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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65
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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66
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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