Miss Share, as she was addressed in the office, was the only child of an art-master, and until she found the West End she had lived all her life in a long Putney "road," no house of which could truthfully say that it was in any way better than or different from its neighbours. This street realized the ideal of equality before God. It had been Lilian's prison, from which she was let out for regular daily exercise, and she hated it as ardently2 as any captive ever hated a prison. Lionel Share had had charge over the art side of an enormous polytechnic3 in another suburb. In youth he had won a national scholarship at South Kensington, and the glory of the scholarship never faded--not even when he was elected President of the Association of Art Masters. He was destined4 by fate to be a teacher of art, and appointed by heaven to be a headmaster and to reach the highest height of artistic5 pedagogy. He understood organization; the handling of committees, of under-masters and of pupils; the filling-up of forms; the engaging of models; and he understood profoundly the craft of pushing pupils successfully through examinations. His name was a sweet odour in the nostrils6 of the London County Council. He rehabilitated7 art and artists in Putney, which admitted that it had had quite a wrong notion of art and artists, having hitherto regarded art as unmanly, and artists as queer, loose, bankruptcy-bound fellows; whereas Mr. Share paid his rent promptly8, went to Margate for his long holiday, wore a frock-coat, attended church, and had been mentioned as a suitable candidate for the Putney Borough9 Council. Until Mr. Share Putney had never been able to explain to itself the respectability of the National Gallery, which after all was full of art done by artists. The phenomenon of Mr. Share solved the enigma--the Old Masters must have been like Lionel Share.
At home Mr. Share was a fat man with a black beard and moustache, who adored his daughter and loved his wife. A strict monogamist, whose life would bear the fullest investigation10, he was, nevertheless, what is euphemistically called "uxorious11." He returned home of a night--often late, on account of evening classes--with ravishment. He knew that his wife and daughter would be ready to receive him, and they were. He kissed and fondled them. He praised them to their faces, asserting that their like could not be discovered among womankind, and he repeated again and again that his little Lilian was very beautiful. He ate and drank a good supper. If he loved his wife he loved also eating and drinking. Now and then he would arrive with half a bottle of champagne12 sticking out of his overcoat pocket. Not that he came within a thousand miles of "drinking"! He did not. He would not even keep champagne or any wine (except Australian burgundy) in the house; but he would pop in at the wine merchant's when the fancy took him.
He seldom worried his dears with his professional troubles. Only if organization and committees were specially13 exasperating14 would he refer, and then but casually15, to the darker side of existence. As for art, he never mentioned it, save to deride16 some example of "Continental17" or "advanced" or "depraved" or "perverse18" art (comprehensively described as "futurist") which had regrettably got into the pages of The Studio, the only magazine to which he subscribed19. Nor did he ever in his prime paint or sketch20 for pleasure. But at the beginning of every year he would set to work to do a small thing or two for the Royal Academy, which small thing or two were often accepted by the Royal Academy, though never, one is sorry to say, sold. The Royal Academy soirée was Lilian's sole outlet21 into the great world. She could not, however, be as enthusiastic about it as were her father and mother; for in the privacy of her mind she held the women thereat to be a most dowdy22 and frumpy lot.
The girl loved her father and mother; she also pitied her mother and hated her father. She pitied her mother for being an utterly23 acquiescent24 slave with no will of her own, and hated her father because he had not her ambition to rise above the state of the frumpy middle middle-class--and for other reasons. The man had realized his own ambitions, and was a merry soul sunk in contentment. The world held nothing that he wanted and did not possess. He looked up to the upper classes without envy or jealousy25, and read about them with ingenuous26 joy. He had no instinct for any sort of elegance27.
Lilian was intensely ambitious, yearning28 after elegance. She saw illustrated29 advertisements of furniture in The Studio and of attire30 in the daily papers, and compared them with the smug ugliness of the domestic interior and her plain frocks, and was passionately31 sad. She read about the emancipation32 of girls and about the "new girl," and compared this winged creature with herself. Writers in newspapers seemed to assume that all girls were new girls, and Lilian knew the awful falsity of the assumption. She rarely left Putney, unless it was to go by motor-bus to Kew Gardens on a Saturday afternoon with papa and mamma. She did not reach the West End once in a thousand years, and when she did she came back tragic33. She would have contrived34 to reach the West End oftener, but, though full of leisure, she had no money for bus fares. Mr. Share never gave her money except for a specific purpose; and she could not complain, for her mother, an ageing woman, never had a penny that she must not account for--not a penny. Never!
Mr. Share could not conceive what either of them could want with loose money. He was not averse35, he admitted, from change and progress. With great breadth of mind he admitted that change and progress were inevitable36. But his attitude towards these phenomena37 resembled that of the young St. Augustine towards another matter, who cried: "Give me chastity, O Lord, but not yet!" In Mr. Share's view his wife and daughter had no business in the world; and indeed his finest pride was to maintain them in complete ignorance of the world. Even during the war he dissuaded38 Lilian from any war-work, holding that she could most meetly help the Empire to triumph by helping39 to solace40 her father in the terrific troubles of keeping a large art school alive under D.O.R.A. and the Conscription Act.
Later, Mrs. Share was struck down by cancer on the liver and died after six months' illness, which cost Mr. Share a considerable amount of money--lavishly squandered41, cheerfully paid. Mr. Share was heart-broken; he really grew quite old in a fortnight; and his mute appeal to Lilian for moral succour and the balm of filial tenderness was irresistible42. Lilian had lost a mother, but the main fact in the situation was that Mr. Share had lost a peerless wife. Lilian became housekeeper43 and the two settled down together. Mr. Share adored his daughter more than ever, and more visibly. Her freedom, always excessively limited, was now retrenched44. She was transfixed eternally as the old man's prop45. Her twenty-first birthday passed, and not a word as to her future, as to a marriage for her, or as to her individuality, desires, hopes! She was papa's cherished darling.
Then Mr. Share caught pneumonia46, through devotion to duty, and died in a few days; and at last Lilian felt on her lovely cheek the winds of the world; at last she was free. Of high paternal47 finance she had never in her life heard one word. In the week following the funeral she learnt that she would be mistress of the furniture and a little over one hundred pounds net. Mr. Share had illustrated the ancient maxim48 that it is easier to make money than to keep it. He had held shipping49 shares too long and had sold a fully1 paid endowment insurance policy in the vain endeavour to replace by adventurous50 investment that which the sea had swallowed up. And Lilian was helpless. She could do absolutely nothing that was worth money. She could not begin to earn a livelihood51. As for relatives, there was only her father's brother, a Board School teacher with a large vulgar family and an income far too small to permit of generosities52. Lilian was first incredulous, then horror-struck.
Leaving the youth of the world to pick up art as best it could without him, and fleeing to join his wife in paradise, the loving, adoring father had in effect abandoned a beautiful idolized daughter to the alternatives of starvation or prostitution. He had shackled53 her wrists behind her back and hobbled her feet and bequeathed her to wolves. That was what he had done, and what many and many such fathers had done, and still do, to their idolized daughters.
Herein was the root of Lilian's awful burning resentment54 against the whole world, and of her fierce and terrible determination by fair means or foul55 to make the world pay. Her soul was a horrid56 furnace, and if by chance Lionel Share leaned out from the gold bar of heaven and noticed it, the sight must have turned his thoughts towards hell for a pleasant change. She was saved from disaster, from martyrdom, from ignominy, from the unnamable, by the merest fluke. The nurse who tended Lionel Share's last hours was named Grig. This nurse had cousins in the typewriting business. She had also a very kind heart, a practical mind, and a persuasive57 manner with cousins.
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1
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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polytechnic
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| adj.各种工艺的，综合技术的；n.工艺(专科)学校；理工(专科)学校 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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rehabilitated
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| 改造（罪犯等）( rehabilitate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使恢复正常生活； 使恢复原状； 修复 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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borough
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| n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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uxorious
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| adj.宠爱妻子的 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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deride
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| v.嘲弄，愚弄 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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subscribed
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| v.捐助( subscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；签署，题词；订阅；同意 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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dowdy
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| adj.不整洁的；过旧的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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acquiescent
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| adj.默许的，默认的 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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ingenuous
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| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
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elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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averse
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| adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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dissuaded
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| 劝（某人）勿做某事，劝阻( dissuade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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41
squandered
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| v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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43
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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44
retrenched
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| v.紧缩开支( retrench的过去式和过去分词 )；削减（费用）；节省 | |
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45
prop
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| vt.支撑；n.支柱，支撑物；支持者，靠山 | |
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46
pneumonia
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| n.肺炎 | |
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47
paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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49
shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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50
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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51
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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52
generosities
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| n.慷慨( generosity的名词复数 )；大方；宽容；慷慨或宽容的行为 | |
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53
shackled
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| 给（某人）带上手铐或脚镣( shackle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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54
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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55
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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56
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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57
persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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