“We must keep together.”
“I can’t loaf about here any longer. I’m catching2 cold. And I promised to keep a look-out in the lane.”
Joan Gaunt brought out her electric lamp and glanced at her watch.
“It is only just eleven.”
“He said he might be here early.”
Obviously Lizzie Straker meant to have her way, and her having it meant that Joan and Eve had to break camp and move into the timber track that joined the lane. The night was fairly dark, but Joan Gaunt had taken care to scatter3 torn scraps4 of white paper between the clump5 of firs and the woodland track. A light wind had risen, and the black boughs6 of the firs swayed vaguely7 against the sky. The sandy track was banked with furze, broom, and young birch trees, and here and there between the heather were little islands of short sweet turf that had been nibbled8 by rabbits. Joan Gaunt and Eve spread their coats on one of these patches of turf, while Lizzie Straker went on towards the lane to watch for Galahad.
Eve heard the turret9 clock at Fernhill strike twelve. The wind in the trees kept up a constant under-chant, so that the subdued10 humming of Kentucky’s car as it crept up the lane was hardly distinguishable from the wind-song overhead. Two beams of light swung into the dark colonnade11, thrusting yellow rays in among the firs, and splashing on the gorse and heather. The big car was crawling dead slow, with Lizzie Straker standing12 on the step and holding on to one of the hood-brackets. Jones, the chauffeur13, was driving.
“Here we are.”
Lizzie Straker jumped down excitedly.
“It was a good thing I went. He’d have missed the end of the lane. Wouldn’t you, old sport?”
“I was looking for you, you know, and not for sign-posts.”
“Get along, sir! You’re not half serious enough.”
He climbed out.
“You had better turn her here, Jones, so that we shall have her nose pointing the right way if we have to get off in a hurry. Hallo, Miss Gaunt, you ought to be out in the Balkans doing the Florence Nightingale! What!”
Lizzie Straker was keeping close to him, with that air of ownership that certain women assume towards men who are faithful to no particular woman.
“Is Miss Carfax with you?”
Lizzie laughed.
“Plenty of inflammable stuff here, Miss Carfax. You can include me if you like.”
But the joke did not carry.
The chauffeur had turned the car and put out the lamps. The war material was stored in a big locker16 under the back seat, and consisted of a couple of cans of petrol, half a sack of shavings, and a bundle of tow. The chauffeur passed them out to Kentucky, who had taken off his heavy coat and thrown it into the car.
“Now then, all ready, comrades?”
“Joan knows the way!”
Eve’s mute acceptance of the adventure was not destined17 to survive the night-march through the fir woods. She was walking beside Joan Gaunt, who led the attacking party, Lizzie Straker shadowing Lawrence Kentucky, Jones, the chauffeur, carrying the petrol cans and bringing up the rear. The grey sandy track wound like a ribbon among the black boles of the firs, whose branches kept up a sibilant whispering as the night wind played through them.
It struck Eve that they were going in the wrong direction.
“We are walking away from Fernhill!”
Joan Gaunt snapped a retort out of the darkness.
“We are not going to Fernhill.”
Eve was puzzled. She might have asked in the words of unregenerate man, “Then where the devil are you going?”
In another moment she had guessed at their objective, remembering Canterton’s cottage that stood white and new and empty, under the black benisons of the tall firs. Her cottage! She thought of it instantly as something personal and precious, something that was symbolical18, something that these pétroleuses should never harm.
“What are you going to burn this time?”
“A new house that belongs to the Cantertons of Fernhill.”
Eve’s sense of humour was able to snatch one instant’s laughter from the unexpectedness of the adventure. What interplay life offered. What a jest circumstances were working off on her. She was being challenged to declare herself, subjected to a Solomon’s judgment19, posed by being asked to destroy something that had been created for the real woman in herself.
She was conscious of a tense feeling at the heart, and a quickening of her breathing. The physical part of her was to be embroiled20. She heard Lizzie Straker giggling21 noiselessly, and the sound angered her, touched some red spot in her brain. She felt her muscles quivering.
“Would it be the cottage?”
Her doubts were soon set at rest, for Joan Gaunt turned aside along a broad path that led through a dense22 plantation23. It was thick midnight here, but as the trees thinned Eve saw a whiteness shining through—the white walls of Canterton’s cottage.
For the moment her brain felt fogged. She was trembling on the edge of action, yet still held back and waited.
The whole party hesitated on the edge of the wood, the women and Lawrence Kentucky speaking in whispers.
“Seems all right!”
“Silent as the proverbial tomb!”
“I’ll go round and reconnoitre.”
He stole off with jerky, striding vehemence24, pushed through a young thuja hedge, and disappeared behind the house. In two minutes he was back again, spitting with satisfaction.
“Splendid! All dark and empty oh. Come forrard. We’ll persuade one of the front windows.”
They pushed through between the soft cypresses25 and reached the lawn in front of the cottage where the grey stone path went from the timber porch to the hedge of yews26. Kentucky and the chauffeur piled their war-plant in the porch, and being rapid young gentlemen, lost no time in attacking one of the front windows.
“We are not going to burn this house!”
Lizzie Straker whisked round like a snappy terrier.
“What did you say?”
“This house is not going to be burnt.”
“What rot are you talking?”
“I mean just what I say.”
“Don’t talk bosh!”
“I tell you, I am in earnest.”
Lizzie Straker made a quick movement, and snatched at Eve’s wrist. She thrust her face forward with a kind of back-street truculence28.
“What d’you mean?”
“What I have said.”
“Joan, d’you hear? She’s trying to rat. What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing. Only I have ceased to believe in these methods.”
“Oh, you have, have you!”
“Let my wrist go!”
“Not a bit of it. What’s this particular house to you? What have you turned soft for? Out with it. I suppose there’s a man somewhere at the back of your mind.”
There was a sound in Lizzie Straker’s voice that reminded Eve of the ripping of calico.
“I am simply telling you that this cottage is not going to be burnt.”
“Joan, d’you hear that? You—you can’t stop it!”
Eve twisted free.
“I have only to shout rather strenuously30. The Fernhill people are on the alert. Unless you tell Mr. Kentucky, or Galahad as you please to call him——”
Lizzie Straker sprang at her like a wild cat.
Eve had never had to face such a mad thing, a thing that was so tempestuously32 and hysterically33 vindictive34. Lizzie Straker might have been bred in the slums and taught to bite and kick and scratch like a frenzied35 animal.
“You beast! You sneak! We shan’t burn the place, shan’t we? Leave her to me, Joan, I say. I’ll teach her to play the traitor36!”
Eve was a strong young woman, but she was attacked by a fanatic37 who was not too furious to forget the Japanese tricks she had learnt at a wrestling school.
“I’ve got you. I’ll pin you down, you beastly sneak!”
She tripped Eve and threw her, and squirming over her, pinioned38 Eve’s right arm in such a way that she had her at her mercy.
“I will break it, if you don’t lie still.”
Joan Gaunt had been watching the tussle40, ready to intervene if her comrade were in danger of being worsted. Lawrence Kentucky and the chauffeur had their heads inside the window that they had just succeeded in forcing, when the porch door opened suddenly, and a man rushed out. He swung round, pivoting41 by one hand round one of the corner posts of the porch, and was on the two men at the window before they could run. To Joan Gaunt, who had turned as the door opened, it was like watching three shadows moving against the white wall of the cottage. The big attacking shadow flung out long arms, and the lesser42 shadows toppled and melted into the obscurity of mother earth.
“Lizzie, look out!”
Joan Gaunt had plenty of pluck, but she was sent staggering by a hand-off that would have grassed most full-backs in the kingdom. Canterton bent43 over the two women. One hand gripped Lizzie Straker’s back, crumpling44 up the clothes between the shoulder blades, the other went under her chin.
“Let go!”
“I shan’t. I’ll break her arm if——”
But the primitive45 and male part of Canterton had thrown off the little niceties of civilisation46. Thumb and fingers came together mercilessly, and with the spasm47 of her crushed larynx, Lizzie Straker let go her hold.
“You damned cat!”
He lifted her bodily, and pitched her two yards away on to the grass.
“Come on, you chaps. Collar those two beggars over there!”
There were no men to back him, but the ruse48 answered. Joan Gaunt had clutched Lizzie Straker, dragged her up, dazed and coughing, and was hurrying her off towards the fir woods. Lawrence Kentucky and Jones, the chauffeur, had also taken to their heels, and had reached the thuja hedge behind the house. The party coalesced49, broke through, melted away into the darkness.
Eve was on her feet, breathless, and white with a great anger. She knew that just at the moment that Canterton had used his strength, Lizzie Straker had tried to break her arm.
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1
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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2
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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scatter
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| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
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scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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6
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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7
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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8
nibbled
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| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的过去式和过去分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
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9
turret
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| n.塔楼，角塔 | |
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10
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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colonnade
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| n.柱廊 | |
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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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chauffeur
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| n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司机；v.为…开车 | |
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14
penal
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| adj.刑罚的；刑法上的 | |
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15
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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16
locker
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| n.更衣箱，储物柜，冷藏室，上锁的人 | |
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17
destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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18
symbolical
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| a.象征性的 | |
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19
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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20
embroiled
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| adj.卷入的；纠缠不清的 | |
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21
giggling
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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22
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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24
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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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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26
yews
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| n.紫杉( yew的名词复数 ) | |
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27
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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28
truculence
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| n.凶猛，粗暴 | |
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29
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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30
strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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31
sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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32
tempestuously
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| adv.剧烈地，暴风雨似地 | |
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33
hysterically
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| ad. 歇斯底里地 | |
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vindictive
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| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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35
frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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36
traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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fanatic
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| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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38
pinioned
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| v.抓住[捆住]（双臂）( pinion的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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40
tussle
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| n.&v.扭打，搏斗，争辩 | |
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41
pivoting
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| n.绕轴旋转，绕公共法线旋转v.（似）在枢轴上转动( pivot的现在分词 )；把…放在枢轴上；以…为核心，围绕（主旨）展开 | |
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42
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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43
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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44
crumpling
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| 压皱，弄皱( crumple的现在分词 )； 变皱 | |
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45
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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47
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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48
ruse
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| n.诡计，计策；诡计 | |
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49
coalesced
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| v.联合，合并( coalesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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