“I hope you’re not famished6?” Rainer’s slim figure was in the doorway7. “My uncle has a little business to attend to with Mr. Grisben, and we don’t dine for half an hour. Shall I fetch you, or can you find your way down? Come straight to the dining-room—the second door on the left of the long gallery.”
He disappeared, leaving a ray of warmth behind him, and Faxon, relieved, lit a cigarette and sat down by the fire.
Looking about with less haste, he was struck by a detail that had escaped him. The room was full of flowers—a mere4 “bachelor’s room,” in the wing of a house opened only for a few days, in the dead middle of a New Hampshire winter! Flowers were everywhere, not in senseless profusion8, but placed with the same conscious art that he had remarked in the grouping of the blossoming shrubs9 in the hall. A vase of arums stood on the writing-table, a cluster of strange-hued carnations10 on the stand at his elbow, and from bowls of glass and porcelain11 clumps12 of freesia-bulbs diffused13 their melting fragrance14. The fact implied acres of glass—but that was the least interesting part of it. The flowers themselves, their quality, selection and arrangement, attested15 on some one’s part—and on whose but John Lavington’s?—a solicitous16 and sensitive passion for that particular form of beauty. Well, it simply made the man, as he had appeared to Faxon, all the harder to understand!
The half-hour elapsed, and Faxon, rejoicing at the prospect of food, set out to make his way to the dining-room. He had not noticed the direction he had followed in going to his room, and was puzzled, when he left it, to find that two staircases, of apparently17 equal importance, invited him. He chose the one to his right, and reached, at its foot, a long gallery such as Rainer had described. The gallery was empty, the doors down its length were closed; but Rainer had said: “The second to the left,” and Faxon, after pausing for some chance enlightenment which did not come, laid his hand on the second knob to the left.
The room he entered was square, with dusky picture-hung walls. In its centre, about a table lit by veiled lamps, he fancied Mr. Lavington and his guests to be already seated at dinner; then he perceived that the table was covered not with viands18 but with papers, and that he had blundered into what seemed to be his host’s study. As he paused Frank Rainer looked up.
“Oh, here’s Mr. Faxon. Why not ask him—?”
Mr. Lavington, from the end of the table, reflected his nephew’s smile in a glance of impartial19 benevolence20.
“Certainly. Come in, Mr. Faxon. If you won’t think it a liberty—”
Mr. Grisben, who sat opposite his host, turned his head toward the door. “Of course Mr. Faxon’s an American citizen?”
Frank Rainer laughed. “That’s all right!... Oh, no, not one of your pin-pointed pens, Uncle Jack21! Haven’t you got a quill22 somewhere?”
Mr. Balch, who spoke23 slowly and as if reluctantly, in a muffled24 voice of which there seemed to be very little left, raised his hand to say: “One moment: you acknowledge this to be—?”
“My last will and testament25?” Rainer’s laugh redoubled. “Well, I won’t answer for the ‘last.’ It’s the first, anyway.”
“It’s a mere formula,” Mr. Balch explained.
“Well, here goes.” Rainer dipped his quill in the inkstand his uncle had pushed in his direction, and dashed a gallant26 signature across the document.
Faxon, understanding what was expected of him, and conjecturing27 that the young man was signing his will on the attainment28 of his majority, had placed himself behind Mr. Grisben, and stood awaiting his turn to affix29 his name to the instrument. Rainer, having signed, was about to push the paper across the table to Mr. Balch; but the latter, again raising his hand, said in his sad imprisoned30 voice: “The seal—?”
“Oh, does there have to be a seal?”
Faxon, looking over Mr. Grisben at John Lavington, saw a faint frown between his impassive eyes. “Really, Frank!” He seemed, Faxon thought, slightly irritated by his nephew’s frivolity31.
“Who’s got a seal?” Frank Rainer continued, glancing about the table. “There doesn’t seem to be one here.”
Mr. Grisben interposed. “A wafer will do. Lavington, you have a wafer?”
Mr. Lavington had recovered his serenity32. “There must be some in one of the drawers. But I’m ashamed to say I don’t know where my secretary keeps these things. He ought to have seen to it that a wafer was sent with the document.”
“Oh, hang it—” Frank Rainer pushed the paper aside: “It’s the hand of God—and I’m as hungry as a wolf. Let’s dine first, Uncle Jack.”
“I think I’ve a seal upstairs,” said Faxon.
Mr. Lavington sent him a barely perceptible smile. “So sorry to give you the trouble—”
“Oh, I say, don’t send him after it now. Let’s wait till after dinner!”
Mr. Lavington continued to smile on his guest, and the latter, as if under the faint coercion33 of the smile, turned from the room and ran upstairs. Having taken the seal from his writing-case he came down again, and once more opened the door of the study. No one was speaking when he entered—they were evidently awaiting his return with the mute impatience34 of hunger, and he put the seal in Rainer’s reach, and stood watching while Mr. Grisben struck a match and held it to one of the candles flanking the inkstand. As the wax descended35 on the paper Faxon remarked again the strange emaciation36, the premature37 physical weariness, of the hand that held it: he wondered if Mr. Lavington had ever noticed his nephew’s hand, and if it were not poignantly38 visible to him now.
With this thought in his mind, Faxon raised his eyes to look at Mr. Lavington. The great man’s gaze rested on Frank Rainer with an expression of untroubled benevolence; and at the same instant Faxon’s attention was attracted by the presence in the room of another person, who must have joined the group while he was upstairs searching for the seal. The new-comer was a man of about Mr. Lavington’s age and figure, who stood just behind his chair, and who, at the moment when Faxon first saw him, was gazing at young Rainer with an equal intensity39 of attention. The likeness40 between the two men—perhaps increased by the fact that the hooded41 lamps on the table left the figure behind the chair in shadow—struck Faxon the more because of the contrast in their expression. John Lavington, during his nephew’s clumsy attempt to drop the wax and apply the seal, continued to fasten on him a look of half-amused affection; while the man behind the chair, so oddly reduplicating the lines of his features and figure, turned on the boy a face of pale hostility42.
The impression was so startling that Faxon forgot what was going on about him. He was just dimly aware of young Rainer’s exclaiming; “Your turn, Mr. Grisben!” of Mr. Grisben’s protesting: “No—no; Mr. Faxon first,” and of the pen’s being thereupon transferred to his own hand. He received it with a deadly sense of being unable to move, or even to understand what was expected of him, till he became conscious of Mr. Grisben’s paternally43 pointing out the precise spot on which he was to leave his autograph. The effort to fix his attention and steady his hand prolonged the process of signing, and when he stood up—a strange weight of fatigue44 on all his limbs—the figure behind Mr. Lavington’s chair was gone.
Faxon felt an immediate45 sense of relief. It was puzzling that the man’s exit should have been so rapid and noiseless, but the door behind Mr. Lavington was screened by a tapestry46 hanging, and Faxon concluded that the unknown looker-on had merely had to raise it to pass out. At any rate he was gone, and with his withdrawal47 the strange weight was lifted. Young Rainer was lighting48 a cigarette, Mr. Balch inscribing49 his name at the foot of the document, Mr. Lavington—his eyes no longer on his nephew—examining a strange white-winged orchid50 in the vase at his elbow. Every thing suddenly seemed to have grown natural and simple again, and Faxon found himself responding with a smile to the affable gesture with which his host declared: “And now, Mr. Faxon, we’ll dine.”
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1
ingenuities
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| 足智多谋，心灵手巧( ingenuity的名词复数 ) | |
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2
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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carnations
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| n.麝香石竹，康乃馨( carnation的名词复数 ) | |
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porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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12
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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13
diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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attested
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| adj.经检验证明无病的，经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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16
solicitous
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| adj.热切的，挂念的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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18
viands
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| n.食品，食物 | |
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impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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21
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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22
quill
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| n.羽毛管；v.给（织物或衣服）作皱褶 | |
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23
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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24
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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25
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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26
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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27
conjecturing
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| v. & n. 推测，臆测 | |
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28
attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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29
affix
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| n.附件，附录 vt.附贴，盖(章)，签署 | |
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30
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31
frivolity
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| n.轻松的乐事，兴高采烈；轻浮的举止 | |
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32
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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33
coercion
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| n.强制，高压统治 | |
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34
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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35
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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emaciation
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| n.消瘦，憔悴，衰弱 | |
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37
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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38
poignantly
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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40
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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41
hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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42
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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43
paternally
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| adv.父亲似地；父亲一般地 | |
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44
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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45
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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46
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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47
withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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48
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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49
inscribing
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的现在分词 ) | |
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50
orchid
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| n.兰花，淡紫色 | |
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