Chapter II THE VIEWS OF MISS GIBBIE

 Miss Gibbie's carriage was at the gate, and before the others know what to say she conducted Mrs. Pryor out of the room, put her in the carriage herself, and gave the order to Jackson to drive her home. "Tell Maria to telephone me here in half an hour how William is," she called, "and if you need me let me know," then went back into the house where all were talking at once.

 

"Do you reckon he is really ill, Miss Gibbie?" inquired Mrs. Webb, and "he's so uncomplaining they might not know he was ill," said Mrs. Moon, while Mrs. Tazewell, full of sympathy, thought they ought to adjourn¹ and go see if there was not something they could do.

 

"Which of those questions do you want me to answer first?" Miss Gibbie, taking Mrs. Pryor's chair, waved the turkey-wing fan back and forth², but with fingers not so firm as they had been before the message came, and as she spoke³ the room became quiet again.

 

"Do I hope William Pryor is seriously ill?" she began, her keen gray eyes dim with something rarely seen in them. "Do I hope William is going to die? I do. For thirty-nine years he has been the husband of Lizzie Pryor, and he has earned his reward. I don't believe in a golden-harp⁴ heaven. Not being musical, William and I wouldn't know what to do with a harp. I believe in a heaven where we get away from some people and get back to others, and God knows I hope William will have a little respite⁵ before Lizzie joins him.

 

"I don't know Mr. Pryor very well," said Mrs. Brent, who had moved closer to the table in the general uprising due to Mrs. Pryor's departure, "but I've always felt sorry for him somehow. He had such a patient, frightened face, and was so polite."

 

"That was what ruined him." Miss Gibbie's voice was steady again. "Many wives are ruined by over-politeness. They take advantage of it, and make their husbands spend their lives in an eternal effort to please. That's what poor William was forever attempting to do, and never succeeding. He was Apology in the flesh. No matter what he did in the morning he had to explain it at night."

 

"He had to," broke in Mrs. Tate, who still held her needle between finger and thumb. "If he didn't, Mrs. Pryor breathed so through her nose you couldn't say in the house with her. I was there once when she wanted to go to her sister's in Washington to get new dresses for Maria and Anna Belle⁶ and Sue, and Mr. Pryor had ventured to say he didn't have the money. You ought to have seen her! She hardly spoke to me, and Louisa told me afterward⁷ they didn't see her teeth for a week, she kept her lips down on them so tight. Poor Mr. Pryor, I saw him a day or two afterward on his way home to dinner, and he looked like he would rather go to—"

 

"Hell. Speak out. I would, had I been he." Miss Gibbie blew her nose, put the handkerchief back in the bag hanging from her belt, took out her spectacles and laid them on the table. "Any kind of woman can be endured better than a sulking woman. She's worse than a nagger⁸, and home is a place of perdition with that kind in it. But in a sense William deserved what he got. He let her marry him."

 

"Oh, she didn't ask him!" Mrs. Burnham was from the North, and her voice was astonished interrogation. "Surely she didn't ask him!"

 

"No. She made him ask her. Made him feel so sorry for her, cried over herself and her loneliness so persistently⁹ that William, being a man, walked in. Six weeks later they were married."

 

"I wonder if it was really true the way they say she used to do," and

Mrs. Tate, whose needle was now lost, was again fanning vigorously.

"What way?" Miss Gibbie turned so quickly toward her that Mrs. Tate jumped.

 

"Why, I heard when she was first married that if she couldn't have just what she wanted, or if Mr. Pryor did anything she didn't like, she would lie flat down on her back and kick her heels on the floor so loud you could hear it all over the house. I don't believe it was true."

 

"You don't? Well, it was, with this difference. When she wanted a thing for herself, she lay on her back and kicked. When she wanted it for the children, she lay on her stomach and cried. Either way she got what she wanted."

 

The turkey-wing fan waved back and forth, then Miss Gibbie got up. "This is dirty work we are doing. I prefer to make my remarks to people's faces so they can remark back. And this isn't what I came to this meeting for. I know the talk that has been going around lately about Mary Cary. Lizzie Pryor has led it, and I came here this morning to tell her so. The people in Yorkburg are like all other people. They pat the fat shoulder, and shake the full hand, and eat of the bounty¹⁰, and then, when some jealous-minded, squint-eyed Christian¹¹, so-called, starts questions and speculations¹², everybody repeats them and some try to answer."

 

"But why are you talking to us like this, Miss Gibbie? We are Mary's friends and oughtn't to be taken to task for what we haven't done and don't approve of," said Mrs. Corbin. "We—"

 

"Then if you are Mary's friends you will tell other people what I am telling you. You will cut short all this twaddle about her great wealth and Western ways and numberless beaux. It's the last that sticks so in Puss Jenkins's throat. Puss never had a beau herself, and she can't get reconciled to Mary's many."

 

"Oh, she did have one." Mrs. Moon spoke for the first time since Mrs.

Pryor left. "Don't you remember Mr. Thoroughgood?"

"He never courted her. He told me so himself. He thought over it and prayed over it, and at last decided¹³ he'd do it, but he never did. He bought her a box of candy for which he paid sixty cents—told me that, too—and went to the house prepared to speak the word. I remember the night very well. He tiptoed up the front steps and stood on the porch where he could hear voices in the parlor¹⁴. Puss and her mother were talking, and 'Mercy on me,' he said, 'I never had such a narrow escape in all my life. She was scolding her mother, quarreling with her, lecturing her for something. I tell you I tiptoed down in a hurry.'"

 

Miss Gibbie made the mincing¹⁵ steps of Mr. Thoroughgood and so mimicked¹⁶ his thin, piping voice that all laughed, then she nodded at Mrs. Moon—"I got the candy.

 

"But to go back to Mary. She has heard some of the things said about her, and so have I. Mrs. Deford told her Yorkburg did not need to be washed and ironed, and Lizzie Bettie Pryor wrote her a note informing her Southern people had no sympathy with Northern ideas, and if she wished to keep her old friends in Yorkburg she should be more careful in making new acquaintances. Now this is what I want understood. She is my friend. If any one wishes to ask questions about her, come to me. For statements made against her I will go to them. She has no mother. I have no child. As long as I am here and she is here, we are to be reckoned with together. This is what I came here to say. You can repeat it. I will see that Lizzie Pryor and her daughters hear it, and Mrs. Deford and Puss Jenkins and Mr. Benny Brickhouse—"

 

The door opened noisily and again the maid-servant's head was thrust in. "Mis' Tate," she said, excitedly, "somebody done phone from Mis' Pryor's and say Mr. Pryor done gone and died. She say please somebody come on down there quick, that Mis' Pryor is just carryin' on awful."

 

The ladies sprang to their feet with shocked and frightened faces, but it was Miss Gibbie who spoke.

 

"Poor William!" she said. "Poor William! Lizzie knew he could never eat sausage, and she had it this morning for breakfast!"

1 adjourn   

v.（使）休会，（使）休庭

参考例句：

• The motion to adjourn was carried.休会的提议通过了。
• I am afraid the court may not adjourn until three or even later.我担心法庭要到3点或更晚时才会休庭。

2 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

3 spoke   

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

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 harp   

n.竖琴；天琴座

参考例句：

• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。
• He played an Irish melody on the harp.他用竖琴演奏了一首爱尔兰曲调。

5 respite   

n.休息，中止，暂缓

参考例句：

• She was interrogated without respite for twenty-four hours.她被不间断地审问了二十四小时。
• Devaluation would only give the economy a brief respite.贬值只能让经济得到暂时的缓解。

6 belle   

n.靓女

参考例句：

• She was the belle of her Sunday School class.在主日学校她是她们班的班花。
• She was the belle of the ball.她是那个舞会中的美女。

7 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

8 nagger   

n.爱唠叨的人，泼妇

参考例句：

• His lover turned out to be a nagger. 结果他的情人变成了个爱唠叨的人。 来自互联网

9 persistently   

ad.坚持地；固执地

参考例句：

• He persistently asserted his right to a share in the heritage. 他始终声称他有分享那笔遗产的权利。
• She persistently asserted her opinions. 她果断地说出了自己的意见。

10 bounty   

n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与

参考例句：

• He is famous for his bounty to the poor.他因对穷人慷慨相助而出名。
• We received a bounty from the government.我们收到政府给予的一笔补助金。

11 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

12 speculations   

n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断

参考例句：

• Your speculations were all quite close to the truth. 你的揣测都很接近于事实。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• This possibility gives rise to interesting speculations. 这种可能性引起了有趣的推测。 来自《用法词典》

13 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

14 parlor   

n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅

参考例句：

• She was lying on a small settee in the parlor.她躺在客厅的一张小长椅上。
• Is there a pizza parlor in the neighborhood?附近有没有比萨店？

15 mincing   

adj.矫饰的；v.切碎；切碎

参考例句：

• She came to the park with mincing,and light footsteps.她轻移莲步来到了花园之中。
• There is no use in mincing matters.掩饰事实是没有用的。

16 mimicked   

v.（尤指为了逗乐而）模仿( mimic的过去式和过去分词 )；酷似

参考例句：

• He mimicked her upper-class accent. 他模仿她那上流社会的腔调。 来自辞典例句
• The boy mimicked his father's voice and set everyone off laughing. 男孩模仿他父亲的嗓音，使大家都大笑起来。 来自辞典例句