The day had been close and sultry, and the bedroom still felt hot after the hours of scorching1 sunlight on the tiles. Eve drew the curtains back, and opened the casement2 to its widest, for the upper windows were still fitted with the old lead-lights. The sill was deep, nearly a foot and a half broad, and Eve half lay and half leant upon it while the night air streamed in.
And what a night! All jet and silver; for the moon was up over the fir woods, just as on the night when her mother died. The stillness was the stillness of a dawn where no birds sing. The nightingale had long been mute, and the nightjar preferred the oak woods in the clayland valleys. Eve’s ears could not snatch a single sound out of that vast motionless landscape, with its black woods and mysterious horizons.
The silence made her feel lonely, eerily3 lonely, like a sensitive child lost in a wood. She remembered how she had started awake at night sometimes, terrified by this horror of loneliness, and crying out “Mother, mother!” It was absurd that the grown woman should feel like the child, and yet she found herself hungering for that little placid4 figure with its boring commonplaces and amiable5 soft face. What a prig she had been! She had let that spirit of superiority grow in her, forgetting that the hands that were always knitting those foolish woollen superfluities had held and comforted her as a child. Now, in the white heat of an emotional ordeal6, she missed the nearness of that commonplace affection. What a mistake it was to be too clever; for when the heart ached, one’s cleverness stood by like a dreary7 pedagogue8, helpless and dumb.
The stillness! She wished those dim stars would send down astral rain, and patter on this roof of silence. The sound of dripping water would be welcome. Yes, and those Latimer fountains, were they still murmuring under the cypresses9, or did not the spirit of sage10 economy turn off the water-cocks and shut down the sluices11? Life! It, too, was so often a shutting down of sluices. The deep waters had to be tamed, dammed back, kept from pouring forth12 as they desired. Modern conventional life was like a canal with its system of locks. There were no rapids, no freshets, no impetuous cataracts13. You went up, steadily14, respectably, lock by lock; you came down steadily, and perhaps just as respectably. In between was the gliding15 monotony of the long stretches between artificial banks, with either a religious tow-rope or a puffing16 philosopher to draw you.
She suffered on account of the stillness and this atmosphere of isolation17, and yet the nearness of some very human incident was as a stabbing pain compared to a dull ache. Leaning there over the window-sill, with the moonlight glimmering18 on the lozenged glass in the lattices, she knew that she was looking towards Fernhill and all that it represented. Lynette, the child; the great gardens, that wide, free spacious19, colour-filled life; Canterton’s comradeship, and even more than that. The whole future quivered on one sensitive thread. A breeze could shake it away as a wind shakes a dewdrop from the web of a spider.
She told herself that Canterton must have realised by now the impossible nature of the position he was asking her to assume. If he only would go back to the yesterday of a month ago, and let that happy, workaday life return! But then, would she herself be content with that? She had sipped20 the wine of Tristan and Isoult, and the magic of it was in her blood.
Her thoughts had come to this point, when something startled her. She had heard the latch21 of the gate click. There was a man’s figure standing22 in the shade of a holly23 that grew close to the fence.
Eve was not conscious of any fear, only of an intense curiosity—a desire to know whether she was on the brink24 of some half foreseen crisis. It might be a tramp, it might be the man who came courting her girl Anne; but Anne had gone to bed with a headache an hour before Eve had come to her own room.
In spite of these other possibilities, she felt prophetically convinced that it was Canterton. She did not move away from the window, knowing that the man, whoever he was, must have seen the outline of her head and shoulders against the light within. Her heart was beating faster. She could feel it as she leant with her bosom25 pressing upon the window-sill.
She knew Canterton the moment he moved out into the moonlight, and, crossing the grass, came and stood under her window. He was bareheaded, and his face, as he looked up at her, gave her an impression of pallid26 and passionate27 obstinacy28.
“I had to come!”
She felt a flutter of exultation29, but it was the exultation of tragedy.
“Madman!”
“Then all the rest of the world is mad. Supposing—supposing the girl is still awake. Supposing——Oh, there are a hundred such suppositions! You risk them, and make me risk them.”
“Because I am so sure of myself. I take the risk to promise you a homage31 that shall be inviolate32. Am I a fool? Do you think that I have no self-control—that I shall ever cause this most spiritual thing to be betrayed? I tell you I can live this life. I can make it possible for you to live it.”
Eve raised herself on her elbows, and seemed to be listening. There was the same stillness everywhere, the stillness that had been broken by Canterton’s voice.
“I will come down. I suppose I must let you say all that you have to say.”
She put out the light and felt her way out of the room and down the stairs into the hall. Her brain felt as clear as the sky out yonder, though the turmoil34 in her heart might have been part of the darkness through which she passed. Unlocking and unbolting the door, she found Canterton waiting.
“You are making me do this mad thing.”
She had not troubled to put on a hat, and her face was white and clear and unhidden. Its air of desperate and purposeful frankness struck him. Her eyes looked straight at his, steadily and unflinchingly, with no subtle glances, no cunning of the lids.
“Let’s go down to the woods. Come!”
She spoke as though she had taken command of the crisis, snatched it out of his strong hands. And Canterton obeyed her. They went down the lane in the high shadow of the hedgerows and across the main road into the fir woods, neither of them uttering a word.
Eve paused when they had gone some two hundred yards into the woods. The canopy35 of boughs36 was a black vaulting37, with here and there a crevice38 where the moonlight entered to fall in streaks39 and splashes upon the tree trunks and the ground. On every side were the crowding fir boles that blotted40 out the distance and obscured each other. The woodland floor was covered deep with pine needles, and from somewhere came the smell of bracken.
“Now, let me hear everything.”
“I have told you all that there is to tell. I want you to be the bigger part of my life—the inward life that not another soul knows.”
“Not even Lynette?”
“She is but a child.”
Eve began to walk to and fro, and Canterton kept pace with her.
“Let’s be practical. Let’s be cold, and sure of things. You want me to be a spiritual wife to you, and a spiritual mother to Lynette?”
“Yes.”
“And you think you can live such a life?”
“I know I can.”
“You are sure of yourself. Let me ask you a question. Are you sure of me?”
He looked at her searchingly in the dim light.
“Eve, I am not vain enough to ask you whether——”
“Whether I care?”
“You have said it.”
She paused, gazing at the ground.
“Is a man so much slower than a woman?”
“Sometimes one does not dare to think——”
“But the woman knows without daring.”
He stood silently before her, full of that devout43 wonder that had made him such a watcher in Nature’s world.
“Then, surely, child——”
Her face and eyes flashed up to him, and her hands quivered.
“Don’t call me child! Haven’t you realised that I am a woman?”
“The one woman.”
“There, it is all so impossible! And you don’t understand.”
“Why is it impossible? What is it that I don’t understand?”
“Oh, dear man, must I show you everything? This is why it is impossible.”
Her arms went out and were round his neck. Her mouth was close to his. In the taking of a breath she had kissed him, and he had returned the kiss, and his arms were round her.
“Jim, don’t you understand now? I care too much. That is why it is impossible.”
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1
scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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eerily
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| adv.引起神秘感或害怕地 | |
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4
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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6
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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8
pedagogue
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| n.教师 | |
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cypresses
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| n.柏属植物，柏树( cypress的名词复数 ) | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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sluices
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| n.水闸( sluice的名词复数 )；（用水闸控制的）水；有闸人工水道；漂洗处v.冲洗( sluice的第三人称单数 )；（指水）喷涌而出；漂净；给…安装水闸 | |
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12
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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cataracts
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| n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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16
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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latch
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| n.门闩，窗闩；弹簧锁 | |
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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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holly
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| n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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24
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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28
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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sanest
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| adj.心智健全的( sane的最高级 )；神志正常的；明智的；稳健的 | |
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31
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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inviolate
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| adj.未亵渎的，未受侵犯的 | |
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33
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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turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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vaulting
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| n.（天花板或屋顶的）拱形结构 | |
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crevice
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| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
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streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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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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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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43
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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44
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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