They were having tea under the may tree, whose trusses of white blossom showered down an almost too sweet perfume. At the edge of the lawn was a border packed full of wallflowers, blood red and cloth of gold. It was sunny and windless. The tops of the tall elms were silhouetted5 against the blue.
“Are you going to preach here?”
It was Eve who asked the question, and Joan Gaunt who answered it.
“No. We are just private individuals on a walking tour.”
“I see. And that means?”
“Someone on the Black List.”
Eve smothered6 a sigh of relief. From the moment of entering Basingford she had felt the deep waters of life flowing under her soul. She was herself, and more than herself. A strange, premonitory exultation7 had descended8 on her. Her mood was the singing of a bird at dawn, full of the impulse of a mysterious delight, and of a vitality9 that hovered10 on quivering wings. The lure11 of the spring was in her blood, and she was ready to laugh at the crusading faces of her comrades.
She pushed back her chair.
“I shall go and have a wash.”
“What, another wash!”
Her laughter was a girl’s laughter.
“I like to see the water dimpling in the sunlight, and I like the old Willow12 Pattern basins. What are you going to do?”
Joan had letters to write. Lizzie was reading a book on “Sex and Heredity.”
Eve left them under the may tree, washed her face and hands in the blue basin, tidied her hair, put on her hat with unusual discrimination, and went out to play the truant13.
She simply could not help it. The impulse would brook14 no argument. She walked through Basingford in the direction of Fernhill. She wanted to see the familiar outlines of the hills, to walk along under the cypress15 hedges, to feel herself present in the place that she loved so well. For the moment she was conscious of no purpose that might bring her into human contact with Fernhill. She wanted memories. The woman in her desired to feel!
Her first glimpse of the pine woods made her heart go faster. Here were all the familiar lanes and paths. Some of the trees were her intimates, especially a queer dwarf16 who had gone all to tam-o’-shanter. Even the ditches ran in familiar shadow lines, carrying her memories along. From the lodge17 gate she could see the top of the great sequoia18 that grew on the lawn before the Fernhill house. It was absurd how it all affected19 her. She could have laughed, and she could have wept.
Then a voice, a subtle yet imperious voice, said, “Go down to the Wilderness20!” She bridled21 at the suggestion, only to remind herself that she knew a path that would take her round over the hill and down into the valley where the larches22 grew. The impulse was stronger than anything that she could oppose to it. She went.
The green secrecy23 of the wood received her. She passed along the winding24 path between the straight, stiff poles of the larches, the gloom of the dead lower boughs25 making the living green above more vivid. It was like plunging27 from realism into romance, or opening some quaint28 old book after reading an article on the workings of the London County Council. Eve was back in the world of beauty, of mystery and strangeness. The eyes could not see too far, yet vision was stopped by crowded and miraculous29 life and not by bricks and mortar30.
The trees thinned. She was on the edge of the fairy dell, and she paused instinctively31 with a feeling that was akin26 to awe32. How the sunlight poured down between the green tree tops. Three weeks ago the bluebells33 must have been one spreading mist of lapis-lazuli under the gloom of the criss-cross branches. And the silence of it all. She knew herself to be in the midst of mystery, of a vital something that mattered more than all the gold in the world.
Supposing Lynette should be down yonder?
Eve went forward slowly, and looked over the lip of the dell.
Lynette was there, kneeling in front of the toy stove that Eve had sent her for Christmas.
An extraordinary uprush of tenderness carried Eve away. She stood on the edge of the dell and called:
“Lynette! Lynette!”
The child’s hair flashed as she turned sharply. Her face looked up at Eve, wonderingly, mute with surprise. Then she was up and running, her red lips parted, her eyes alight.
“Miss Eve! Miss Eve!”
They met half way, Eve melting towards the running child like the eternal mother-spirit that opens its arms and catches life to its bosom34. They hugged and kissed. Lynette’s warm lips thrilled the woman in Eve through and through.
“Oh, my dear, you haven’t forgotten me!”
“I knew—I knew you’d come back again!”
“How did you know?”
“Because I asked God. God must like to do nice things sometimes, and of course, when I kept asking Him——. And now you’ve come back for ever and ever!”
“Oh, no, no!”
“But you have. I asked God for that too, and I have been so good that I don’t see, Miss Eve, dear, how He could have said no.”
Eve laughed, soft, tender laughter that was on the edge of tears.
“So you are still making feasts for the fairies?”
“Yes, come and look. The water ought to be boiling. I’ve got your stove. It’s a lovely stove. Daddy and I make tea in it, and it’s splendid.”
Every thing was in readiness, the water on the boil, the fairy teapot waiting to be filled, the sugar and milk standing35 at attention. Eve and Lynette knelt down side by side. They were back in the Golden Age, where no one knew or thought too much, and where no one was greedy.
“And they drink the tea up every night?”
“Nearly every night. And they’re so fond of cheese biscuits.”
“I don’t see any biscuits!”
“No, daddy brings them in his pocket. He’ll be here any minute. Won’t it be a surprise!”
Eve awoke; the dream was broken; she started to her feet.
“Dear, I must be getting back.”
“Oh, no, no!”
“Yes, really.”
Lynette seized her hands.
“You shan’t go. And, listen, there’s daddy!”
Eve heard a deep voice singing in a soft monotone, the voice of one who hardly knew what he was singing.
She stood rigid36, face averted37, Lynette still holding her hands and looking up intently into her face.
“Miss Eve, aren’t you glad to see daddy?”
“Why, yes.”
A sudden silence fell. The man’s footsteps had paused on the edge of the wood. It was as though the life in both of them held its breath.
Eve turned. She had to turn to face something that was inevitable38. He was coming down the bank, his face in the sunlight, his eyes staring straight at her as though there were nothing else in the whole world for him to look at.
Lynette’s voice broke the silence.
“Daddy, she wanted to run away!”
“Oh, child, child!”
Her face hid itself for a moment in Lynette’s hair.
She heard Canterton speaking, and something in his voice helped and steadied her.
“Lynette has caught a fairy. She was always a very confident mortal. How are you—how are you?”
He held out his hand, the big brown hand she remembered so well, and hers went into it.
“Oh, a little older!”
“But not too old for fairyland.”
“May I never be too old for that.”
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1
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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2
farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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silhouetted
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| 显出轮廓的，显示影像的 | |
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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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exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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12
willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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truant
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| n.懒惰鬼，旷课者；adj.偷懒的，旷课的，游荡的；v.偷懒，旷课 | |
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14
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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15
cypress
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| n.柏树 | |
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16
dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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17
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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18
sequoia
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| n.红杉 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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21
bridled
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| 给…套龙头( bridle的过去式和过去分词 )； 控制； 昂首表示轻蔑（或怨忿等）； 动怒，生气 | |
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22
larches
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| n.落叶松（木材）( larch的名词复数 ) | |
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23
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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24
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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26
akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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28
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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29
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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30
mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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32
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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33
bluebells
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| n.圆叶风铃草( bluebell的名词复数 ) | |
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34
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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35
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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36
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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37
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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38
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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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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