At times it so befell that, when Anne went into the bed-chamber, she found the beauty there, who, if she chanced to be in the humour, would detain her in her presence for a space and bewitch her over again. In sooth, it seemed that she took a pleasure in showing her female adorer how wondrously13 full of all fascinations14 she could be. At such times Anne’s plain face would almost bloom with excitement, and her shot pheasant’s eyes would glow as if beholding15 a goddess.
She neither saw nor heard more of the miniature on the riband. It used to make her tremble at times to fancy that by some strange chance it might still be under the bed, and that the handsome face smiled and the blue eyes gazed in the very apartment where she herself sat and her sister was robed and disrobed in all her beauty.
She used all her modest skill in fitting to her own shape and refurnishing the cast-off bits of finery bestowed16 upon her. It was all set to rights long before Clorinda recalled to mind that she had promised that Anne should sometime see her chance visitors take their dish of tea with her.
But one day, for some cause, she did remember, and sent for her.
Anne ran to her bed-chamber and donned her remodelled17 gown with shaking hands. She laughed a little hysterically18 as she did it, seeing her plain snub-nosed face in the glass. She tried to dress her head in a fashion new to her, and knew she did it ill and untidily, but had no time to change it. If she had had some red she would have put it on, but such vanities were not in her chamber or Barbara’s. So she rubbed her cheeks hard, and even pinched them, so that in the end they looked as if they were badly rouged19. It seemed to her that her nose grew red too, and indeed ’twas no wonder, for her hands and feet were like ice.
“She must be ashamed of me,” the humble20 creature said to herself. “And if she is ashamed she will be angered and send me away and be friends no more.”
She did not deceive herself, poor thing, and imagine she had the chance of being regarded with any great lenience21 if she appeared ill.
“Mistress Clorinda begged that you would come quickly,” said Rebecca, knocking at the door.
So she caught her handkerchief, which was scented22, as all her garments were, with dried rose-leaves from the garden, which she had conserved23 herself, and went down to the chintz parlour trembling.
It was a great room with white panels, and flowered coverings to the furniture. There were a number of ladies and gentlemen standing24 talking and laughing loudly together. The men outnumbered the women, and most of them stood in a circle about Mistress Clorinda, who sat upright in a great flowered chair, smiling with her mocking, stately air, as if she defied them to dare to speak what they felt.
Anne came in like a mouse. Nobody saw her. She did not, indeed, know what to do. She dared not remain standing all alone, so she crept to the place where her sister’s chair was, and stood a little behind its high back. Her heart beat within her breast till it was like to choke her.
They were only country gentlemen who made the circle, but to her they seemed dashing gallants. That some of them had red noses as well as cheeks, and that their voices were big and their gallantries boisterous26, was no drawback to their manly27 charms, she having seen no other finer gentlemen. They were specimens28 of the great conquering creature Man, whom all women must aspire29 to please if they have the fortunate power; and each and all of them were plainly trying to please Clorinda, and not she them.
And so Anne gazed at them with admiring awe30, waiting until there should come a pause in which she might presume to call her sister’s attention to her presence; but suddenly, before she had indeed made up her mind how she might best announce herself, there spoke31 behind her a voice of silver.
“It is only goddesses,” said the voice, “who waft32 about them as they move the musk33 of the rose-gardens of Araby. When you come to reign34 over us in town, Madam, there will be no perfume in the mode but that of rose-leaves, and in all drawing-rooms we shall breathe but their perfume.”
And there, at her side, was bowing, in cinnamon and crimson35, with jewelled buttons on his velvet36 coat, the beautiful being whose fair locks the sun had shone on the morning she had watched him ride away—the man whom the imperial beauty had dismissed and called a popinjay.
Clorinda looked under her lashes37 towards him without turning, but in so doing beheld38 Anne standing in waiting.
“A fine speech lost,” she said, “though ’twas well enough for the country, Sir John. ’Tis thrown away, because ’tis not I who am scented with rose-leaves, but Anne there, whom you must not ogle39. Come hither, sister, and do not hide as if you were ashamed to be looked at.”
And she drew her forward, and there Anne stood, and all of them stared at her poor, plain, blushing face, and the Adonis in cinnamon and crimson bowed low, as if she had been a duchess, that being his conqueror’s way with gentle or simple, maid, wife, or widow, beauty or homespun uncomeliness.
It was so with him always; he could never resist the chance of luring40 to himself a woman’s heart, whether he wanted it or not, and he had a charm, a strange and wonderful one, it could not be denied. Anne palpitated indeed as she made her curtsey to him, and wondered if Heaven had ever before made so fine a gentleman and so beautiful a being.
She went but seldom to this room again, and when she went she stood always in the background, far more in fear that some one would address her than that she should meet with neglect. She was used to neglect, and to being regarded as a nonentity41, and aught else discomfited42 her. All her pleasure was to hear what was said, though ’twas not always of the finest wit—and to watch Clorinda play the queen among her admirers and her slaves. She would not have dared to speak of Sir John Oxon frequently—indeed, she let fall his name but rarely; but she learned a curious wit in contriving43 to hear all things concerning him. It was her habit cunningly to lead Mistress Margery to talking about him and relating long histories of his conquests and his grace. Mistress Wimpole knew many of them, having, for a staid and prudent44 matron, a lively interest in his ways. It seemed, truly—if one must believe her long-winded stories—that no duchess under seventy had escaped weeping for him and losing rest, and that ladies of all ranks had committed follies45 for his sake.
Mistress Anne, having led her to this fruitful subject, would sit and listen, bending over her embroidery46 frame with strange emotions, causing her virgin47 breast to ache with their swelling48. She would lie awake at night thinking in the dark, with her heart beating. Surely, surely there was no other man on earth who was so fitted to Clorinda, and to whom it was so suited that this empress should give her charms. Surely no woman, however beautiful or proud, could dismiss his suit when he pressed it. And then, poor woman, her imagination strove to paint the splendour of their mutual49 love, though of such love she knew so little. But it must, in sooth, be bliss50 and rapture51; and perchance, was her humble thought, she might see it from afar, and hear of it. And when they went to court, and Clorinda had a great mansion52 in town, and many servants who needed a housewife’s eye upon their doings to restrain them from wastefulness53 and riot, might it not chance to be that if she served well now, and had the courage to plead with her then, she might be permitted to serve her there, living quite apart in some quiet corner of the house. And then her wild thoughts would go so far that she would dream—reddening at her own boldness—of a child who might be born to them, a lordly infant son and heir, whose eyes might be blue and winning, and his hair in great fair locks, and whom she might nurse and tend and be a slave to—and love—and love—and love, and who might end by knowing she was his tender servant, always to be counted on, and might look at her with that wooing, laughing glance, and even love her too.
The night Clorinda laid her commands upon Mistress Wimpole concerning the coming of Sir John Oxon, that matron, after receiving them, hurried to her other charges, flurried and full of talk, and poured forth54 her wonder and admiration55 at length.
“She is a wondrous12 lady!” she said—“she is indeed! It is not alone her beauty, but her spirit and her wit. Mark you how she sees all things and lets none pass, and can lay a plan as prudent as any lady old enough to be twice her mother. She knows all the ways of the world of fashion, and will guard herself against gossip in such a way that none can gainsay56 her high virtue57. Her spirit is too great to allow that she may even seem to be as the town ladies. She will not have it! Sir John will not find his court easy to pay. She will not allow that he shall be able to say to any one that he has seen her alone a moment. Thus, she says, he cannot boast. If all ladies were as wise and cunning, there would be no tales to tell.” She talked long and garrulously58, and set forth to them how Mistress Clorinda had looked straight at her with her black eyes, until she had almost shaken as she sat, because it seemed as though she dared her to disobey her will; and how she had sat with her hair trailing upon the floor over the chair’s back, and at first it had seemed that she was flushed with anger, but next as if she had smiled.
“Betimes,” said Mistress Wimpole, “I am afraid when she smiles, but to-night some thought had crossed her mind that pleased her. I think it was that she liked to think that he who has conquered so many ladies will find that he is to be outwitted and made a mock of. She likes that others shall be beaten if she thinks them impudent59. She liked it as a child, and would flog the stable-boys with her little whip until they knelt to beg her pardon for their freedoms.”
That night Mistress Anne went to her bed-chamber with her head full of wandering thoughts, and she had not the power to bid them disperse60 themselves and leave her—indeed, she scarce wished for it. She was thinking of Clorinda, and wondering sadly that she was of so high a pride that she could bear herself as though there were no human weakness in her breast, not even the womanly weakness of a heart. How could it be possible that she could treat with disdain61 this gallant25 gentleman, if he loved her, as he surely must? Herself she had been sure that she had seen an ardent62 flame in his blue eyes, even that first day when he had bowed to her with that air of grace as he spoke of the fragrance63 of the rose leaves he had thought wafted64 from her robe. How could a woman whom he loved resist him? How could she cause him to suffer by forcing him to stand at arm’s length when he sighed to draw near and breathe his passion at her feet?
In the silence of her chamber as she disrobed, she sighed with restless pain, but did not know that her sighing was for grief that love—of which there seemed so little in some lives—could be wasted and flung away. She could not fall into slumber65 when she lay down upon her pillow, but tossed from side to side with a burdened heart.
“She is so young and beautiful and proud,” she thought. “It is because I am so much older that I can see these things—that I see that this is surely the one man who should be her husband. There may be many others, but they are none of them her equals, and she would scorn and hate them when she was once bound to them for life. This one is as beautiful as she—and full of grace, and wit, and spirit. She could not look down upon him, however wrath66 she was at any time. Ah me! She should not spurn67 him, surely she should not!”
She was so restless and ill at ease that she could not lie upon her bed, but rose therefrom, as she often did in her wakeful hours, and went to her lattice, gently opening it to look out upon the night, and calm herself by sitting with her face uplifted to the stars, which from her childhood she had fancied looked down upon her kindly68 and as if they would give her comfort.
To-night there were no stars. There should have been a moon three-quarters full, but, in the evening, clouds had drifted across the sky and closed over all heavily, so that no moonlight was to be seen, save when a rare sudden gust69 made a ragged70 rent, for a moment, in the blackness.
She did not sit this time, but knelt, clad in her night-rail as she was. All was sunk into the profoundest silence of the night. By this time the entire household had been long enough abed to be plunged71 in sleep. She alone was waking, and being of that simple mind which, like a child’s, must ever bear its trouble to a protecting strength, she looked up at the darkness of the cloudy sky and prayed for the better fortune of the man who had indeed not remembered her existence after the moment he had made her his obeisance72. She was too plain and sober a creature to be remembered.
“Perchance,” she murmured, “he is at this moment also looking at the clouds from his window, because he cannot sleep for thinking that in two days he will be beneath her father’s roof and will see her loveliness, and he must needs be contriving within his mind what he will say, if she do but look as if she might regard him with favour, which I pray she will.”
From the path below, that moment there rose a slight sound, so slight a one that for a moment she thought she must have been deceived in believing it had fallen upon her ear. All was still after it for full two minutes, and had she heard no more she would have surely forgotten she had heard aught, or would have believed herself but the victim of fancy. But after the long pause the same sound came again, though this time it was slighter; yet, despite its slightness, it seemed to her to be the crushing of the earth and stone beneath a cautious foot. It was a foot so cautious that it was surely stealthy and scarce dared to advance at all. And then all was still again. She was for a moment overcome with fears, not being of a courageous73 temper, and having heard, but of late, of a bold gipsy vagabond who, with a companion, had broken into the lower rooms of a house of the neighbourhood, and being surprised by its owner, had only been overcome and captured after a desperate fight, in which shots were exchanged, and one of the hurriedly-awakened servants killed. So she leaned forward to hearken further, wondering what she should do to best alarm the house, and, as she bent74 so, she heard the sound again and a smothered75 oath, and with her straining eyes saw that surely upon the path there stood a dark-draped figure. She rose with great care to her feet, and stood a moment shaking and clinging to the window-ledge, while she bethought her of what servants she could wake first, and how she could reach her father’s room. Her poor heart beat in her side, and her breath came quickly. The soundlessness of the night was broken by one of the strange sudden gusts76 of wind which tossed the trees, and tore at the clouds as they hurried. She heard the footsteps again, as if it feared its own sound the less when the wind might cover it. A faint pale gleam showed between two dark clouds behind which the moon had been hidden; it grew brighter, and a jagged rent was torn, so that the moon herself for a second or so shone out dazzling bright before the clouds rushed over her again and shut her in.
It was at this very instant Mistress Anne heard the footsteps once more, and saw full well a figure in dark cloak and hat which stepped quickly into the shade of a great tree. But more she saw—and clapped her hand upon her mouth to stifle77 the cry that would have otherwise risen in spite of her—that notwithstanding his fair locks were thrust out of sight beneath his hat, and he looked strange and almost uncomely, it was the face of Sir John Oxon, the moon, bursting through the jagged clouds, had shone upon.
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1
ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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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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furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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nuns
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| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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7
novices
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| n.新手( novice的名词复数 )；初学修士（或修女）；（修会等的）初学生；尚未赢过大赛的赛马 | |
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embroidering
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| v.（在织物上）绣花( embroider的现在分词 )；刺绣；对…加以渲染（或修饰）；给…添枝加叶 | |
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incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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12
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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13
wondrously
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| adv.惊奇地，非常，极其 | |
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fascinations
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| n.魅力( fascination的名词复数 )；有魅力的东西；迷恋；陶醉 | |
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15
beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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16
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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remodelled
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| v.改变…的结构[形状]( remodel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hysterically
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| ad. 歇斯底里地 | |
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rouged
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| 胭脂，口红( rouge的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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21
lenience
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| n.宽大，温和 | |
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scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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23
conserved
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| v.保护，保藏，保存( conserve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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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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32
waft
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| v.飘浮，飘荡；n.一股；一阵微风；飘荡 | |
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musk
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| n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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37
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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38
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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39
ogle
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| v.看；送秋波；n.秋波，媚眼 | |
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40
luring
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的现在分词形式） | |
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41
nonentity
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| n.无足轻重的人 | |
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42
discomfited
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| v.使为难( discomfit的过去式和过去分词)；使狼狈；使挫折；挫败 | |
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43
contriving
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| （不顾困难地）促成某事( contrive的现在分词 )； 巧妙地策划，精巧地制造（如机器）； 设法做到 | |
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44
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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45
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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46
embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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47
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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48
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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49
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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50
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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51
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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52
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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53
wastefulness
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| 浪费，挥霍，耗费 | |
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54
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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56
gainsay
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| v.否认，反驳 | |
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57
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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58
garrulously
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59
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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60
disperse
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| vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散 | |
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disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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62
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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63
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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spurn
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| v.拒绝，摈弃；n.轻视的拒绝；踢开 | |
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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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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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obeisance
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| n.鞠躬，敬礼 | |
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courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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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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smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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stifle
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| vt.使窒息；闷死；扼杀；抑止，阻止 | |
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