Mr. Twycott had never rallied, and now lay in a well-packed cemetery2 to the south of the great city, where, if all the dead it contained had stood erect3 and alive, not one would have known him or recognized his name. The boy had dutifully followed him to the grave, and was now again at school.
Throughout these changes Sophy had been treated like the child she was in nature though not in years. She was left with no control over anything that had been her husband’s beyond her modest personal income. In his anxiety lest her inexperience should be overreached he had safeguarded with trustees all he possibly could. The completion of the boy’s course at the public school, to be followed in due time by Oxford5 and ordination6, had been all previsioned and arranged, and she really had nothing to occupy her in the world but to eat and drink, and make a business of indolence, and go on weaving and coiling the nut-brown hair, merely keeping a home open for the son whenever he came to her during vacations.
Foreseeing his probable decease long years before her, her husband in his lifetime had purchased for her use a semi-detached villa8 in the same long, straight road whereon the church and parsonage faced, which was to be hers as long as she chose to live in it. Here she now resided, looking out upon the fragment of lawn in front, and through the railings at the ever-flowing traffic; or, bending forward over the window-sill on the first floor, stretching her eyes far up and down the vista9 of sooty trees, hazy10 air, and drab house-façades, along which echoed the noises common to a suburban11 main thoroughfare.
Somehow, her boy, with his aristocratic school-knowledge, his grammars, and his aversions, was losing those wide infantine sympathies, extending as far as to the sun and moon themselves, with which he, like other children, had been born, and which his mother, a child of nature herself, had loved in him; he was reducing their compass to a population of a few thousand wealthy and titled people, the mere7 veneer12 of a thousand million or so of others who did not interest him at all. He drifted further and further away from her. Sophy’s milieu13 being a suburb of minor14 tradesmen and under-clerks, and her almost only companions the two servants of her own house, it was not surprising that after her husband’s death she soon lost the little artificial tastes she had acquired from him, and became—in her son’s eyes—a mother whose mistakes and origin it was his painful lot as a gentleman to blush for. As yet he was far from being man enough—if he ever would be—to rate these sins of hers at their true infinitesimal value beside the yearning15 fondness that welled up and remained penned in her heart till it should be more fully4 accepted by him, or by some other person or thing. If he had lived at home with her he would have had all of it; but he seemed to require so very little in present circumstances, and it remained stored.
Her life became insupportably dreary16; she could not take walks, and had no interest in going for drives, or, indeed, in travelling anywhere. Nearly two years passed without an event, and still she looked on that suburban road, thinking of the village in which she had been born, and whither she would have gone back—O how gladly!—even to work in the fields.
Taking no exercise, she often could not sleep, and would rise in the night or early morning and look out upon the then vacant thoroughfare, where the lamps stood like sentinels waiting for some procession to go by. An approximation to such a procession was indeed made early every morning about one o’clock, when the country vehicles passed up with loads of vegetables for Covent Garden market. She often saw them creeping along at this silent and dusky hour—waggon17 after waggon, bearing green bastions of cabbages nodding to their fall, yet never falling, walls of baskets enclosing masses of beans and peas, pyramids of snow-white turnips18, swaying howdahs of mixed produce—creeping along behind aged19 night-horses, who seemed ever patiently wondering between their hollow coughs why they had always to work at that still hour when all other sentient20 creatures were privileged to rest. Wrapped in a cloak, it was soothing21 to watch and sympathize with them when depression and nervousness hindered sleep, and to see how the fresh green-stuff brightened to life as it came opposite the lamp, and how the sweating animals steamed and shone with their miles of travel.
They had an interest, almost a charm, for Sophy, these semirural people and vehicles moving in an urban atmosphere, leading a life quite distinct from that of the daytime toilers on the same road. One morning a man who accompanied a waggon-load of potatoes gazed rather hard at the house-fronts as he passed, and with a curious emotion she thought his form was familiar to her. She looked out for him again. His being an old-fashioned conveyance22, with a yellow front, it was easily recognizable, and on the third night after she saw it a second time. The man alongside was, as she had fancied, Sam Hobson, formerly23 gardener at Gaymead, who would at one time have married her.
She had occasionally thought of him, and wondered if life in a cottage with him would not have been a happier lot than the life she had accepted. She had not thought of him passionately24, but her now dismal25 situation lent an interest to his resurrection—a tender interest which it is impossible to exaggerate. She went back to bed, and began thinking. When did these market-gardeners, who travelled up to town so regularly at one or two in the morning, come back? She dimly recollected26 seeing their empty waggons27, hardly noticeable amid the ordinary day-traffic, passing down at some hour before noon.
It was only April, but that morning, after breakfast, she had the window opened, and sat looking out, the feeble sun shining full upon her. She affected28 to sew, but her eyes never left the street. Between ten and eleven the desired waggon, now unladen, reappeared on its return journey. But Sam was not looking round him then, and drove on in a reverie.
‘Sam!’ cried she.
Turning with a start, his face lighted up. He called to him a little boy to hold the horse, alighted, and came and stood under her window.
‘I can’t come down easily, Sam, or I would!’ she said. ‘Did you know I lived here?’
‘Well, Mrs. Twycott, I knew you lived along here somewhere. I have often looked out for ’ee.’
He briefly29 explained his own presence on the scene. He had long since given up his gardening in the village near Aldbrickham, and was now manager at a market-gardener’s on the south side of London, it being part of his duty to go up to Covent Garden with waggon-loads of produce two or three times a week. In answer to her curious inquiry30, he admitted that he had come to this particular district because he had seen in the Aldbrickham paper, a year or two before, the announcement of the death in South London of the aforetime vicar of Gaymead, which had revived an interest in her dwelling-place that he could not extinguish, leading him to hover31 about the locality till his present post had been secured.
They spoke32 of their native village in dear old North Wessex, the spots in which they had played together as children. She tried to feel that she was a dignified33 personage now, that she must not be too confidential34 with Sam. But she could not keep it up, and the tears hanging in her eyes were indicated in her voice.
‘You are not happy, Mrs. Twycott, I’m afraid?’ he said.
‘O, of course not! I lost my husband only the year before last.’
‘Ah! I meant in another way. You’d like to be home again?’
‘This is my home—for life. The house belongs to me. But I understand’—She let it out then. ‘Yes, Sam. I long for home—our home! I should like to be there, and never leave it, and die there.’ But she remembered herself. ‘That’s only a momentary35 feeling. I have a son, you know, a dear boy. He’s at school now.’
‘Somewhere handy, I suppose? I see there’s lots on ’em along this road.’
‘O no! Not in one of these wretched holes! At a public school—one of the most distinguished36 in England.’
‘Chok’ it all! of course! I forget, ma’am, that you’ve been a lady for so many years.’
‘No, I am not a lady,’ she said sadly. ‘I never shall be. But he’s a gentleman, and that—makes it—O how difficult for me!’
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1
attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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3
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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ordination
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| n.授任圣职 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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8
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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9
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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12
veneer
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| n.(墙上的)饰面，虚饰 | |
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milieu
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| n.环境；出身背景；(个人所处的)社会环境 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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15
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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16
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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waggon
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| n.运货马车，运货车；敞篷车箱 | |
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18
turnips
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| 芜青( turnip的名词复数 )； 芜菁块根； 芜菁甘蓝块根； 怀表 | |
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19
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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sentient
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| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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22
conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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23
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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25
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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27
waggons
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| 四轮的运货马车( waggon的名词复数 )； 铁路货车； 小手推车 | |
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28
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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30
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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31
hover
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| vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫 | |
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32
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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33
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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34
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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35
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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36
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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