Then Mr Colclough appeared.
'Delighted you've come, Mr Loring!' he said, shaking my hand again. He said it with fervour. He obviously was delighted. The exercise of hospitality was clearly the chief joy of his life; at least, if he had a greater it must have been something where keenness was excessive beyond the point of pleasure, as some joys are. 'How do, Bob? Your missis has just come.' He was still in his motoring clothes.
Mr Brindley, observing my gaze transiently on the Marcus Stones, said: 'I know what you're looking for; you're looking for "Saul's Soul's Awakening9". We don't keep it in the window; you'll see it inside.'
'Bob's always rotting me about my pictures,' Mr Colclough smiled indulgently. He seemed big enough to eat his friend, and his rich, heavy voice rolled like thunder about the hall. 'Come along in, will you?'
'Half-a-second, Ol,' Mr Brindley called in a conspiratorial10 tone, and, turning to me: Tell him THE Limerick. You know.'
'The one about the hayrick?'
Mr Brindley nodded.
There were three heads close together for a space of twenty seconds or so, and then a fearful explosion happened—the unique, tremendous laughter of Mr Colclough, which went off like a charge of melinite and staggered the furniture.
'Now, now!' a feminine voice protested from an unseen interior.
I was taken to the drawing-room, an immense apartment with an immense piano black as midnight in it. At the further end two women were seated close together in conversation, and I distinctly heard the name 'Fuge'. One of them was Mrs Brindley, in a hat. The other, a very big and stout11 woman, in an elaborate crimson12 garment that resembled a teagown, rose and came to meet me with extended hand.
'My wife—Mr Loring,' said Mr Oliver Colclough.
'So glad to meet you,' she said, beaming on me with all her husband's pleasure. 'Come and sit between Mrs Brindley and me, near the window, and keep us in order. Don't you find it very close? There are at least a hundred cats in the garden.'
One instantly perceived that ceremonial stiffness could not exist in the same atmosphere with Mrs Oliver Colclough. During the whole time I spent in her house there was never the slightest pause in the conversation. Mrs Oliver Colclough prevented nobody from talking, but she would gladly use up every odd remnant of time that was not employed by others. No scrap13 was too small for her.
'So this is the other one!' I said to myself. 'Well, give me this one!'
Certainly there was a resemblance between the two, in the general formation of the face, and the shape of the shoulders; but it is astonishing that two sisters can differ as these did, with a profound and vital difference. In Mrs Colclough there was no coquetterie, no trace of that more-than-half-suspicious challenge to a man that one feels always in the type to which her sister belonged. The notorious battle of the sexes was assuredly carried on by her in a spirit of frank muscular gaiety—she could, I am sure, do her share of fighting. Put her in a boat on the bosom14 of the lake under starlight, and she would not by a gesture, a tone, a glance, convey mysterious nothings to you, a male. She would not be subtly changed by the sensuous15 influences of the situation; she would always be the same plump and earthly piece of candour. Even if she were in love with you, she would not convey mysterious nothings in such circumstances. If she were in love with you she would most clearly convey unmysterious and solid somethings. I was convinced that the contributing cause to the presence of the late Simon Fuge in the boat on Ilam Lake on the historic night was Annie the superior barmaid, and not Sally of the automobile16. But Mrs Colclough, if not beautiful, was a very agreeable creation. Her amplitude17 gave at first sight an exaggerated impression of her age; but this departed after more careful inspection18. She could not have been more than thirty. She was very dark, with plenteous and untidy black hair, thick eyebrows19, and a slight moustache. Her eyes were very vivacious20, and her gestures, despite that bulk, quick and graceful21. She was happy; her ideals were satisfied; it was probably happiness that had made her stout. Her massiveness was apparently22 no grief to her; she had fallen into the carelessness which is too often the pitfall23 of women who, being stout, are content.
'How do, missis?' Mr Brindley greeted her, and to his wife, 'How do, missis? But, look here, bright star, this gadding24 about is all very well, but what about those precious kids of yours? None of 'em dead yet, I hope.'
'Don't be silly, Bob.'
'I've been over to your house,' Mrs Colclough put in. 'Of course it isn't mumps25. The child's as right as rain. So I brought Mary back with me.'
'Well,' said Mr Brindley, 'for a woman who's never had any children your knowledge of children beggars description. What you aren't sure you know about them isn't knowledge. However—'
'Listen,' Mrs Colclough replied, with a delightful26 throwingdown of the glove. 'I'll bet you a level sovereign that child hasn't got the mumps. So there! And Oliver will guarantee to pay you.'
'Aye!' said Mr Colclough; 'I'll back my wife any day.'
'I won't,' said Mr Brindley.
'Now let's sit down.' Mrs Colclough addressed me with particular, confidential28 grace.
We three exactly filled the sofa. I have often sat between two women, but never with such calm, unreserved, unapprehensive comfortableness as I experienced between Mrs Colclough and Mrs Brindley. It was just as if I had known them for years.
'You'll make a mess of that, Ol,' said Mr Brindley.
The other two men were at some distance, in front of a table, on which were two champagne29 bottles and five glasses, and a plate of cakes. 'Well,' I said to myself, 'I'm not going to have any champagne, anyhow. Mercurey! Green Chartreuse! Irish whisky! And then champagne! And a morning's hard work tomorrow! No!'
Mr Colclough carefully emptied the bottle into the glasses, of which Mr Brindley seized two and advanced with one in either hand for the women. It was the host who offered a glass to me.
'No, thanks very much, I really can't,' I said in a very firm tone.
My tone was so firm that it startled them. They glanced at each other with alarmed eyes, like simple people confronted by an inexplicable31 phenomenon. 'But look here, mister!' said Mr Colclough, pained, 'we've got this out specially32 for you. You don't suppose this is our usual tipple33, do you?'
I yielded. I could do no less than sacrifice myself to their enchanting34 instinctive35 kindness of heart. 'I shall be dead tomorrow,' I said to myself; 'but I shall have lived tonight.' They were relieved, but I saw that I had given them a shock from which they could not instantaneously recover. Therefore I began with a long pull, to reassure36 them.
'Mrs Brindley has been telling me that Simon Fuge is dead,' said Mrs Colclough brightly, as though Mrs Brindley had been telling her that the price of mutton had gone down.
I perceived that those two had been talking over Simon Fuge, after their fashion.
'Oh yes,' I responded.
'Have you got that newspaper in your pocket, Mr Loring?' asked Mrs Brindley.
I had.
'No,' I said, feeling in my pockets; 'I must have left it at your house.'
'Well,' she said, 'that's strange. I looked for it to show it to Mrs Colclough, but I couldn't see it.'
This was not surprising. I did not want Mrs Colclough to read the journalistic obituary37 until she had given me her own obituary of Fuge.
'It must be somewhere about,' I said; and to Mrs Colclough: 'I suppose you knew him pretty well?'
'Oh, bless you, no! I only met him once.'
'At Ilam?'
'Yes. What are you going to do, Oliver?'
Her husband was opening the piano.
'You don't expect us to listen, do you?'
'I expect you to do what pleases you, missis,' said he. 'I should be a bigger fool than I am if I expected anything else.' Then he smiled at me. 'No! Just go on talking. Ol and I'll drown you easy enough. Quite short! Back in five minutes.'
The two men placed each his wine-glass on the space on the piano designed for a candlestick, lighted cigars, and sat down to play.
'Yes,' Mrs Colclough resumed, in a lower, more confidential tone, to the accompaniment of the music. 'You see, there was a whole party of us there, and Mr Fuge was staying at the hotel, and of course he knew several of us.'
'And he took you out in a boat?'
'Me and Annie? Yes. Just as it was getting dusk he came up to us and asked us if we'd go for a row. Eh, I can hear him asking us now! I asked him if he could row, and he was quite angry. So we went, to quieten him.' She paused, and then laughed.
'Sally!' Mrs Brindley protested. 'You know he's dead!'
'Yes.' She admitted the rightness of the protest. 'But I can't help it. I was just thinking how he got his feet wet in pushing the boat off.' She laughed again. 'When we were safely off, someone came down to the shore and shouted to Mr Fuge to bring the boat back. You know his quick way of talking.' (Here she began to imitate Fuge.) '"I've quarrelled with the man this boat belongs to. Awful feud39! Fact is, I'm in a hostile country here!" And a lot more like that. It seemed he had quarrelled with everybody in Ilam. He wasn't sure if the landlord of the hotel would let him sleep there again. He told us all about all his quarrels, until he dropped one of the oars2. I shall never forget how funny he looked in the moonlight when he dropped the oar3. "There, that's your fault!" he said. "You make me talk too much about myself, and I get excited." He kept striking matches to look for the oar, and turning the boat round and round with the other oar. "Last match!" he said. "We shall never see land tonight." Then he found the oar again. He considered we were saved. Then he began to tell us about his aunt. "You know I'd no business to be here. I came down from London for my aunt's funeral, and here I am in a boat at night with two pretty girls!" He said the funeral had taught him one thing, and that was that black neckties were the only possible sort of necktie. He said the greatest worry of his life had always been neckties; but he wouldn't have to worry any more, and so his aunt hadn't died for nothing. I assure you he kept on talking about neckties. I assure you, Mr Loring, I went to sleep—at least I dozed—and when I woke up he was still talking about neckties. But then his feet began to get cold. I suppose it was because they were wet. The way he grumbled40 about his feet being cold! I remember he turned his coat collar up. He wanted to get on shore and walk, but he'd taken us a long way up the lake by that time, and he saw we were absolutely lost. So he put the oars in the boat and stood up and stamped his feet. It might have upset the boat.'
'How did it end?' I inquired.
'Well, Annie and I caught the train, but only just. You see it was a special train, so they kept it for us, otherwise we should have been in a nice fix.'
'So you have special trains in these parts?'
'Why, of course! It was the annual outing of the teachers of St Luke's Sunday School and their friends, you see. So we had a special train.'
At this point the duettists came to the end of a movement, and Mr Brindley leaned over to us from his stool, glass in hand.
'The railway company practically owns Ilam,' he explained, 'and so they run it for all they're worth. They made the lake, to feed the canals, when they bought the canals from the canal company. It's an artificial lake, and the railway runs alongside it. A very good scheme of the company's. They started out to make Ilam a popular resort, and they've made it a popular resort, what with special trains and things. But try to get a special train to any other place on their rotten system, and you'll soon see!'
'How big is the lake?' I asked.
'How long is it, Ol?' he demanded of Colclough. 'A couple of miles?'
They proceeded with Brahms.
'He ran with you all the way to the station, didn't he?' Mrs Brindley suggested to Mrs Colclough.
'I should just say he did!' Mrs Colclough concurred42. 'He wanted to get warm, and then he was awfully43 afraid lest we should miss it.'
'I thought you were on the lake practically all night!' I exclaimed.
'All night! Well, I don't know what you call all night. But I was back in Bursley before eleven o'clock, I'm sure.'
I then contrived44 to discover the Gazette in an unsearched pocket, and I gave it to Mrs Colclough to read. Mrs Brindley looked over her shoulder.
There was no slightest movement of depreciation45 on Mrs Colclough's part. She amiably46 smiled as she perused47 the GAZETTE'S version of Fuge's version of the lake episode. Here was the attitude of the woman whose soul is like crystal. It seems to me that most women would have blushed, or dissented48, or simulated anger, or failed to conceal49 vanity. But Mrs Coclough might have been reading a fairy tale, for any emotion she displayed.
'Yes,' she said blandly50; 'from the things Annie used to tell me about him sometimes, I should say that was just how he WOULD talk. They seem to have thought quite a lot of him in London, then?'
'Oh, rather!' I said. 'I suppose your sister knew him pretty well?'
'Annie? I don't know. She knew him.'
I distinctly observed a certain self-consciousness in Mrs Colclough as she made this reply. Mrs Brindley had risen and with wifely attentiveness51 was turning over the music page for her husband.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
considerably
|
|
| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
oars
|
|
| n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
oar
|
|
| n.桨，橹，划手；v.划行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
portraying
|
|
| v.画像( portray的现在分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
middle-aged
|
|
| adj.中年的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
positively
|
|
| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
ecstasy
|
|
| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
awakening
|
|
| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
conspiratorial
|
|
| adj.阴谋的，阴谋者的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
crimson
|
|
| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
scrap
|
|
| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
bosom
|
|
| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
sensuous
|
|
| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
automobile
|
|
| n.汽车，机动车 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
amplitude
|
|
| n.广大；充足；振幅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
inspection
|
|
| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
eyebrows
|
|
| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
vivacious
|
|
| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
graceful
|
|
| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
pitfall
|
|
| n.隐患，易犯的错误；陷阱，圈套 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
gadding
|
|
| n.叮搔症adj.蔓生的v.闲逛( gad的现在分词 )；游荡；找乐子；用铁棒刺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
mumps
|
|
| n.腮腺炎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
delightful
|
|
| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
enjoined
|
|
| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
confidential
|
|
| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
champagne
|
|
| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
cork
|
|
| n.软木，软木塞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
inexplicable
|
|
| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
specially
|
|
| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
tipple
|
|
| n.常喝的酒；v.不断喝，饮烈酒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
enchanting
|
|
| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
instinctive
|
|
| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
reassure
|
|
| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
obituary
|
|
| n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
smack
|
|
| vt.拍，打，掴；咂嘴；vi.含有…意味；n.拍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
feud
|
|
| n.长期不和；世仇；v.长期争斗；世代结仇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
grumbled
|
|
| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
adagio
|
|
| adj.缓慢的；n.柔板；慢板；adv.缓慢地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
concurred
|
|
| 同意（concur的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
awfully
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
contrived
|
|
| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
depreciation
|
|
| n.价值低落，贬值，蔑视，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
amiably
|
|
| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
perused
|
|
| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
dissented
|
|
| 不同意，持异议( dissent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
conceal
|
|
| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
blandly
|
|
| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
attentiveness
|
|
| [医]注意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |