The Buck’s Head was a somewhat unusual place for a man of this sort to choose as a house of sojourn8 in preference to some Casterbridge inn four miles further on. Before he left home it had been a lively old tavern9 at which High-flyers, and Heralds10, and Tally-hoes had changed horses on their stages up and down the country; but now the house was rather cavernous and chilly11, the stable-roofs were hollow-backed, the landlord was asthmatic, and the traffic gone.
He arrived in the afternoon, and when he had sent back the fly and was having a nondescript meal, he put a question to the waiting-maid with a mien12 of indifference13.
She replied in the affirmative.
‘And are any of the family left there still?’
‘O no, bless you, sir! They sold the place years ago—Squire Everard’s son did—and went away. I’ve never heard where they went to. They came quite to nothing.’
‘Never heard anything of the young lady—the Squire’s daughter?’
‘No. You see ’twas before I came to these parts.’
When the waitress left the room, Nicholas pushed aside his plate and gazed out of the window. He was not going over into the Froom Valley altogether on Christine’s account, but she had greatly animated16 his motive17 in coming that way. Anyhow he would push on there now that he was so near, and not ask questions here where he was liable to be wrongly informed. The fundamental inquiry18 he had not ventured to make—whether Christine had married before the family went away. He had abstained19 because of an absurd dread20 of extinguishing hopeful surmise21. That the Everards had left their old home was bad enough intelligence for one day.
Rising from the table he put on his hat and went out, ascending22 towards the upland which divided this district from his native vale. The first familiar feature that met his eye was a little spot on the distant sky—a clump23 of trees standing24 on a barrow which surmounted25 a yet more remote upland—a point where, in his childhood, he had believed people could stand and see America. He reached the further verge26 of the plateau on which he had entered. Ah, there was the valley—a greenish-grey stretch of colour—still looking placid27 and serene28, as though it had not much missed him. If Christine was no longer there, why should he pause over it this evening? His uncle and aunt were dead, and to-morrow would be soon enough to inquire for remoter relatives. Thus, disinclined to go further, he turned to retrace29 his way to the inn.
In the backward path he now perceived the figure of a woman, who had been walking at a distance behind him; and as she drew nearer he began to be startled. Surely, despite the variations introduced into that figure by changing years, its ground-lines were those of Christine?
Nicholas had been sentimental30 enough to write to Christine immediately on landing at Southampton a day or two before this, addressing his letter at a venture to the old house, and merely telling her that he planned to reach the Roy-Town inn on the present afternoon. The news of the scattering32 of the Everards had dissipated his hope of hearing of her; but here she was.
So they met—there, alone, on the open down by a pond, just as if the meeting had been carefully arranged.
She threw up her veil. She was still beautiful, though the years had touched her; a little more matronly—much more homely33. Or was it only that he was much less homely now—a man of the world—the sense of homeliness34 being relative? Her face had grown to be pre-eminently of the sort that would be called interesting. Her habiliments were of a demure35 and sober cast, though she was one who had used to dress so airily and so gaily36. Years had laid on a few shadows too in this.
‘I received your letter,’ she said, when the momentary37 embarrassment38 of their first approach had passed. ‘And I thought I would walk across the hills to-day, as it was fine. I have just called at the inn, and they told me you were out. I was now on my way homeward.’
He hardly listened to this, though he intently gazed at her. ‘Christine,’ he said, ‘one word. Are you free?’
‘I—I am in a certain sense,’ she replied, colouring.
The announcement had a magical effect. The intervening time between past and present closed up for him, and moved by an impulse which he had combated for fifteen years, he seized her two hands and drew her towards him.
She started back, and became almost a mere31 acquaintance. ‘I have to tell you,’ she gasped39, ‘that I have—been married.’
‘I did not marry till many years after you had left,’ she continued in the humble41 tones of one confessing to a crime. ‘Oh Nic,’ she cried reproachfully, ‘how could you stay away so long?’
‘Whom did you marry?’
‘Mr. Bellston.’
‘I—ought to have expected it.’ He was going to add, ‘And is he dead?’ but he checked himself. Her dress unmistakably suggested widowhood; and she had said she was free.
‘I must now hasten home,’ said she. ‘I felt that, considering my shortcomings at our parting so many years ago, I owed you the initiative now.’
‘There is some of your old generosity42 in that. I’ll walk with you, if I may. Where are you living, Christine?’
‘In the same house, but not on the old conditions. I have part of it on lease; the farmer now tenanting the premises43 found the whole more than he wanted, and the owner allowed me to keep what rooms I chose. I am poor now, you know, Nicholas, and almost friendless. My brother sold the Froom-Everard estate when it came to him, and the person who bought it turned our home into a farmhouse44. Till my father’s death my husband and I lived in the manor-house with him, so that I have never lived away from the spot.’
She was poor. That, and the change of name, sufficiently45 accounted for the inn-servant’s ignorance of her continued existence within the walls of her old home.
It was growing dusk, and he still walked with her. A woman’s head arose from the declivity46 before them, and as she drew nearer, Christine asked him to go back.
‘This is the wife of the farmer who shares the house,’ she said. ‘She is accustomed to come out and meet me whenever I walk far and am benighted47. I am obliged to walk everywhere now.’
The farmer’s wife, seeing that Christine was not alone, paused in her advance, and Nicholas said, ‘Dear Christine, if you are obliged to do these things, I am not, and what wealth I can command you may command likewise. They say rolling stones gather no moss48; but they gather dross49 sometimes. I was one of the pioneers to the gold-fields, you know, and made a sufficient fortune there for my wants. What is more, I kept it. When I had done this I was coming home, but hearing of my uncle’s death I changed my plan, travelled, speculated, and increased my fortune. Now, before we part: you remember you stood with me at the altar once, and therefore I speak with less preparation than I should otherwise use. Before we part then I ask, shall another again intrude50 between us? Or shall we complete the union we began?’
She trembled—just as she had done at that very minute of standing with him in the church, to which he had recalled her mind. ‘I will not enter into that now, dear Nicholas,’ she replied. ‘There will be more to talk of and consider first—more to explain, which it would have spoiled this meeting to have entered into now.’
‘Yes, yes; but—’
‘Further than the brief answer I first gave, Nic, don’t press me to-night. I still have the old affection for you, or I should not have sought you. Let that suffice for the moment.’
‘Very well, dear one. And when shall I call to see you?’
‘I will write and fix an hour. I will tell you everything of my history then.’
And thus they parted, Nicholas feeling that he had not come here fruitlessly. When she and her companion were out of sight he retraced51 his steps to Roy-Town, where he made himself as comfortable as he could in the deserted52 old inn of his boyhood’s days. He missed her companionship this evening more than he had done at any time during the whole fifteen years; and it was as though instead of separation there had been constant communion with her throughout that period. The tones of her voice had stirred his heart in a nook which had lain stagnant53 ever since he last heard them. They recalled the woman to whom he had once lifted his eyes as to a goddess. Her announcement that she had been another’s came as a little shock to him, and he did not now lift his eyes to her in precisely54 the same way as he had lifted them at first. But he forgave her for marrying Bellston; what could he expect after fifteen years?
He slept at Roy-Town that night, and in the morning there was a short note from her, repeating more emphatically her statement of the previous evening—that she wished to inform him clearly of her circumstances, and to calmly consider with him the position in which she was placed. Would he call upon her on Sunday afternoon, when she was sure to be alone?
‘Nic,’ she wrote on, ‘what a cosmopolite you are! I expected to find my old yeoman still; but I was quite awed55 in the presence of such a citizen of the world. Did I seem rusty56 and unpractised? Ah—you seemed so once to me!’
Tender playful words; the old Christine was in them. She said Sunday afternoon, and it was now only Saturday morning. He wished she had said to-day; that short revival57 of her image had vitalized to sudden heat feelings that had almost been stilled. Whatever she might have to explain as to her position—and it was awkwardly narrowed, no doubt—he could not give her up. Miss Everard or Mrs. Bellston, what mattered it?—she was the same Christine.
He did not go outside the inn all Saturday. He had no wish to see or do anything but to await the coming interview. So he smoked, and read the local newspaper of the previous week, and stowed himself in the chimney-corner. In the evening he felt that he could remain indoors no longer, and the moon being near the full, he started from the inn on foot in the same direction as that of yesterday, with the view of contemplating58 the old village and its precincts, and hovering59 round her house under the cloak of night.
With a stout60 stick in his hand he climbed over the five miles of upland in a comparatively short space of time. Nicholas had seen many strange lands and trodden many strange ways since he last walked that path, but as he trudged61 he seemed wonderfully like his old self, and had not the slightest difficulty in finding the way. In descending62 to the meads the streams perplexed63 him a little, some of the old foot-bridges having been removed; but he ultimately got across the larger water-courses, and pushed on to the village, avoiding her residence for the moment, lest she should encounter him, and think he had not respected the time of her appointment.
He found his way to the churchyard, and first ascertained64 where lay the two relations he had left alive at his departure; then he observed the gravestones of other inhabitants with whom he had been well acquainted, till by degrees he seemed to be in the society of all the elder Froom-Everard population, as he had known the place. Side by side as they had lived in his day here were they now. They had moved house in mass.
But no tomb of Mr. Bellston was visible, though, as he had lived at the manor-house, it would have been natural to find it here. In truth Nicholas was more anxious to discover that than anything, being curious to know how long he had been dead. Seeing from the glimmer65 of a light in the church that somebody was there cleaning for Sunday he entered, and looked round upon the walls as well as he could. But there was no monument to her husband, though one had been erected66 to the Squire.
Nicholas addressed the young man who was sweeping67. ‘I don’t see any monument or tomb to the late Mr. Bellston?’
‘O no, sir; you won’t see that,’ said the young man drily.
‘Why, pray?’
‘Because he’s not buried here. He’s not Christian-buried anywhere, as far as we know. In short, perhaps he’s not buried at all; and between ourselves, perhaps he’s alive.’
Nicholas sank an inch shorter. ‘Ah,’ he answered.
‘I am a stranger here—as to late years.’
‘Mr. Bellston was a traveller—an explorer—it was his calling; you may have heard his name as such?’
‘I remember.’ Nicholas recalled the fact that this very bent69 of Mr. Bellston’s was the incentive70 to his own roaming.
‘Well, when he married he came and lived here with his wife and his wife’s father, and said he would travel no more. But after a time he got weary of biding71 quiet here, and weary of her—he was not a good husband to the young lady by any means—and he betook himself again to his old trick of roving—with her money. Away he went, quite out of the realm of human foot, into the bowels72 of Asia, and never was heard of more. He was murdered, it is said, but nobody knows; though as that was nine years ago he’s dead enough in principle, if not in corporation. His widow lives quite humble, for between her husband and her brother she’s left in very lean pasturage.’
Nicholas went back to the Buck’s Head without hovering round her dwelling73. This then was the explanation which she had wanted to make. Not dead, but missing. How could he have expected that the first fair promise of happiness held out to him would remain untarnished? She had said that she was free; and legally she was free, no doubt. Moreover, from her tone and manner he felt himself justified74 in concluding that she would be willing to run the risk of a union with him, in the improbability of her husband’s existence. Even if that husband lived, his return was not a likely event, to judge from his character. A man who could spend her money on his own personal adventures would not be anxious to disturb her poverty after such a lapse75 of time.
Well, the prospect76 was not so unclouded as it had seemed. But could he, even now, give up Christine?
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1
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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bleaching
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| 漂白法，漂白 | |
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ailments
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| 疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
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blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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gloss
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| n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰 | |
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nonchalance
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| n.冷淡，漠不关心 | |
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sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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heralds
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| n.使者( herald的名词复数 )；预报者；预兆；传令官v.预示( herald的第三人称单数 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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mien
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| n.风采；态度 | |
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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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squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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19
abstained
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| v.戒（尤指酒），戒除( abstain的过去式和过去分词 )；弃权（不投票） | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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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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surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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29
retrace
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| v.折回；追溯，探源 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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32
scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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33
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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homeliness
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| n.简朴，朴实；相貌平平 | |
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demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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41
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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42
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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declivity
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| n.下坡，倾斜面 | |
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benighted
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| adj.蒙昧的 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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dross
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| n.渣滓；无用之物 | |
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50
intrude
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| vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰 | |
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51
retraced
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| v.折回( retrace的过去式和过去分词 )；回忆；回顾；追溯 | |
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52
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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53
stagnant
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| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
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54
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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55
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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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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58
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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59
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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trudged
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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63
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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64
ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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66
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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67
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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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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69
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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70
incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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71
biding
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| v.等待，停留( bide的现在分词 )；居住；（过去式用bided）等待；面临 | |
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bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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73
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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74
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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75
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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