“But what must we do?” demanded Madame Piriac.
“Oh! We can walk round on the dyke,” said Audrey superiorly. “Unless the stiles frighten you.”
“It is about to rain,” said Madame Piriac, glancing at the high curved heels of her shoes.
The sky, which was very wide and variegated6 over Mozewater, did indeed seem to threaten.
At that moment the dinghy appeared round the forefoot of the Ariadne. Mr. Gilman and Miss Thompkins were in it, and Mr. Gilman was rowing with gentleness and dignity. They had, even afar off, a tremendous air of intimacy7; each leaned towards the other, face to face, and Tommy had her chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees. And in addition to an air of intimacy they had an air of mystery. It was surprising, and perhaps a little annoying, to Audrey that those two should have gone on living to themselves, in their own self-absorbed way, while such singular events had been happening to herself in Flank Hall. She put several fingers in her mouth and produced a piercing long-distance whistle which effectively reached the dinghy.
“My poor little one!” exclaimed Madame Piriac, shocked in spite of her broadmindedness by both the sound and the manner of its production.
“Oh! I learnt that when I was twelve,” said Audrey. “It took me four months, but I did it. And nobody except Miss Ingate knows that I can do it.”
The occupants of the dinghy were signalling their intention to rescue, and Mr. Gilman used his back nobly.
“Oh, yes!” said Audrey. “You see those white stones? ... It’s quite easy.”
When the dinghy had done about half the journey Madame Piriac murmured:
Audrey hesitated an instant.
“Who am I? ... Oh! I see. Well, I’d better keep on being Mrs. Moncreiff for a bit, hadn’t I?”
“It is as you please, darling.”
The fact was that Audrey recoiled11 from a general confession12, though admitting it to be ultimately inevitable13. Moreover, she had a slight fear that each of her friends in turn might make a confession ridiculous by saying: “We knew all along, of course.”
The dinghy was close in.
“My!” cried Tommy. “Who did that whistle? It was enough to beat the cars.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know!” Audrey retorted.
The embarkation14, under Audrey’s direction, was accomplished15 in safety, and, save for one tiny French scream, in silence. The silence, which persisted, was peculiar16. Each pair should have had something to tell the other, yet nothing was told, or even asked. Mr. Gilman rowed with careful science, and brought the dinghy alongside the yacht in an unexceptionable manner. Musa stood on deck apart, acting17 indifference18. Madame Piriac, having climbed into the Ariadne, went below at once. Miss Thompkins, seeing her friend Mr. Price half-way down the saloon companion, moved to speak to him, and they vanished together. Mr. Gilman was respectfully informed by the engineer that the skipper and Dr. Cromarty were ashore19.
“How nice it is on the water!” said Audrey to Mr. Gilman in a low, gentle voice. “There is a channel round there with three feet of water in it at low tide.” She sketched20 a curve in the air with her finger. “Of course you know this part,” said Mr. Gilman cautiously and even apprehensively21. His glance seemed to be saying: “And it was you who gave that fearful whistle, too! Are you, can you be, all that I dreamed?”
“I do,” Audrey answered. “Would you like me to show it you.”
“I should be more than delighted,” said Mr. Gilman.
With a gesture he summoned a man to untie22 the dinghy again and hold it, and the man slid down into the dinghy like a monkey.
“I’ll pull,” said Audrey, in the boat.
The man sprang out of the dinghy.
“One instant!” Mr. Gilman begged her, standing23 up in the sternsheets, and popping his head through a porthole of the saloon. “Mr. Price!”
“Sir?” From the interior.
“Will you be good enough to play that air with thirty-six variations, of Beethoven’s? We shall hear splendidly from the dinghy.”
“Certainly, sir.”
And Audrey said to herself: “You don’t want him to flirt24 with Tommy while you’re away, so you’ve given him something to keep him busy.”
Mr. Gilman remarked under his breath to Audrey: “I think there is nothing finer than to hear Beethoven on the water.”
Ignoring the thirty-six variations of Beethoven, Audrey rowed slowly away, and after about a hundred yards the boat had rounded a little knoll26 which marked the beginning of a narrow channel known as the Lander Creek27. The thirty-six variations, however, would not be denied; they softly impregnated the whole beautiful watery28 scene.
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Gilman suddenly, “perhaps your ladyship was not quite pleased at me rowing-about with Miss Thompkins—especially after I had taken her for a walk.” He smiled, but his voice was rather wistful. Audrey liked him prodigiously29 in that moment.
“Foolish man!” she replied, with a smile far surpassing his, and she rested on her oars30, taking care to keep the boat in the middle of the channel. “Do you know why I asked you to come out? I wanted to talk to you quite privately31. It is easier here.”
“I’m so glad!” he said simply and sincerely. And Audrey thought: “Is it possible to give so much pleasure to an important and wealthy man with so little trouble?”
“Yes,” she said. “Of course you know who I really am, don’t you, Mr. Gilman?”
“I only know you’re Mrs. Moncreiff,” he answered.
“But I’m not! Surely you’ve heard something? Surely it’s been hinted in front of you?”
“Never!” said he.
“But haven’t you asked—about my marriage, for instance?”
“To ask might have been to endanger your secret,” he said.
“I see!” she murmured. “How frightfully loyal you are, Mr. Gilman! I do admire loyalty33. Well, I dare say very, very few people do know. So I’ll tell you. That’s my home over there.” And she pointed34 to Flank Hall, whose chimneys could just be seen over the bank.
“I admit that I had thought so,” said Mr. Gilman.
“But naturally that was your home as a girl, before your marriage.”
“I’ve never been married, Mr. Gilman,” she said. “I’m only what the French call a jeune fille.”
His face changed; he seemed to be withdrawing alarmed into himself.
“Never—been married?”
“Oh! You must understand me!” she went on, with an appealing vivacity35. “I was all alone. I was in mourning for my father and mother. I wanted to see the world. I just had to see it! I expect I was very foolish, but it was so easy to put a ring on my finger and call myself Mrs. And it gave me such advantages. And Miss Ingate agreed. She was my mother’s oldest friend.... You’re vexed36 with me.”
“Ah! That’s only the effect of my forehead!”
“And yet, you know, I always thought there was something very innocent about you, too.”
“I don’t know what that was,” said Audrey. “But honestly I acted for the best. You see I’m rather rich. Supposing I’d only gone about as a young marriageable girl—what frightful32 risks I should have run, shouldn’t I? Somebody would be bound to have married me for my money. And look at all I should have missed—without this ring! I should never have met you in Paris, for instance, and we should never have had those talks.... And—and there’s a lot more reasons—I shall tell you another time—about Madame Piriac and so on. Now do say you aren’t vexed!”
”I think you’ve been splendid,” he said, with enthusiasm. “I think the girls of to-day are splendid! I’ve been a regular old fogey, that’s what it is.”
“Now there’s one thing I want you not to do,” Audrey proceeded. “I want you not to alter the way you talk to me. Because I’m really just the same girl I was last night. And I couldn’t bear you to change.”
“I won’t! I won’t! But of course——”
“No, no! No buts. I won’t have it. Do you know why I told you just this afternoon? Well, partly because you were so perfectly38 sweet last night. And partly because I’ve got a favour to ask you, and I wouldn’t ask it until I’d told you.”
“You can’t ask me a favour,” he replied, “because it wouldn’t be a favour. It would be my privilege.”
“But if you put it like that I can’t ask you.”
“You must!” he said firmly.
Then she told him something of the predicament of Jane Foley. He listened with an expression of trouble. Audrey finished bluntly: “She’s my friend. And I want you to take her on the yacht to-night after it’s dark. Nobody but you can save her. There! I’ve asked you!”
“Jane Foley!” he murmured.
She could see that he was aghast. The syllables39 of that name were notorious throughout Britain. They stood for revolt, damage to property, defiance40 of law, injured policemen, forcible feeding, and all sorts of phenomena41 that horrified42 respectable pillars of society.
“She’s the dearest thing!” said Audrey. “You’ve no idea. You’d love her. And she’s done as much for Women’s Suffrage43 as anybody in the world. She’s a real heroine, if you like. You couldn’t help the cause better than by helping44 her. And I know how keen you are to help.” And Audrey said to herself: “He’s as timid as a girl about it. How queer men are, after all!”
“But what are we to do with her afterwards?” asked Mr. Gilman. There was perspiration45 on his brow.
“Sail straight to France, of course. They couldn’t touch her there, you see, because it’s political. It is political, you know,” Audrey insisted proudly.
“And give up all our cruise?”
Audrey bent46 forward, as she had seen Tommy do. She smiled enchantingly. “I quite understand,” she said, with a sort of tenderness. “You don’t want to do it. And it was a shame of me even to suggest it.”
“But I do want to do it,” he protested with splendid despairful resolve. “I was only thinking of you—and the cruise. I do want to do it. I’m absolutely at your disposal. When you ask me to do a thing, I’m only too proud. To do it is the greatest happiness I could have.”
Audrey replied softly:
“You deserve the Victoria Cross.”
“I don’t know exactly what I mean,” she said. “But you’re the nicest man I ever knew.”
He blushed.
“You mustn’t say that to me,” he deprecated.
“I shall, and I shall.”
The sound of the thirty-six variations still came very faintly over the water. The sun sent cataracts48 of warm light across all the estuary49. The water lapped against the boat, and Audrey was overwhelmed by the inexplicable50 marvel51 of being alive in the gorgeous universe.
“I shall have to back water,” she said, low. “There’s no room to turn round here.”
“I suppose we’d better say as little about it as possible,” he ventured.
“Oh! Not a word! Not a word till it’s done.”
Five bells rang clear from the yacht, overmastering the thirty-six variations.
Audrey thought:
“So he’d never agree, wouldn’t he, Madame Piriac!”
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收听单词发音
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1
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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ebbed
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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marooned
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| adj.被围困的；孤立无援的；无法脱身的 | |
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variegated
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| adj.斑驳的，杂色的 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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8
embark
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| vi.乘船，着手，从事，上飞机 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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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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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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embarkation
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| n. 乘船, 搭机, 开船 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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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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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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apprehensively
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| adv.担心地 | |
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untie
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| vt.解开，松开；解放 | |
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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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flirt
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| v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者 | |
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concurred
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| 同意（concur的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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knoll
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| n.小山，小丘 | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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prodigiously
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| adv.异常地，惊人地，巨大地 | |
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oars
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| n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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31
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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37
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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38
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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39
syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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40
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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41
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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45
perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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48
cataracts
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| n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障 | |
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49
estuary
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| n.河口，江口 | |
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50
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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51
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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52
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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53
agitating
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| 搅动( agitate的现在分词 )； 激怒； 使焦虑不安； （尤指为法律、社会状况的改变而）激烈争论 | |
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