But she did not awaken2 either to a sense of brightness or luxury this morning. She had slept it was true, but once or twice when the pillow had slipped aside she had found herself disturbed by the far-off sound of the wailing4 of some little animal which had caused her automatically and really scarcely consciously to replace the pillow. It had only happened at long intervals5 because it is Nature that an exhausted6 baby falls asleep when it is worn out. Robin7 had probably slept almost as much as her mother.
Feather staring at the pinkness around her reached at last, with the assistance of a certain physical consciousness, a sort of spiritless intention.
“She’s asleep now,” she murmured. “I hope she won’t waken for a long time. I feel faint. I shall have to find something to eat—if it’s only biscuits.” Then she lay and tried to remember what Cook had said about her not starving. “She said there were a few things left in the pantry and closets. Perhaps there’s some condensed milk. How do you mix it up? If she cries I might go and give her some. It wouldn’t be so awful now it’s daylight.”
She felt shaky when she got out of bed and stood on her feet. She had not had a maid in her girlhood so she could dress herself, much as she detested8 to do it. After she had begun however she could not help becoming rather interested because the dress she had worn the day before had become crushed and she put on a fresh one she had not worn at all. It was thin and soft also, and black was quite startlingly becoming to her. She would wear this one when Lord Coombe came, after she wrote to him. It was silly of her not to have written before though she knew he had left town after the funeral. Letters would be forwarded.
“It will be quite bright in the dining-room now,” she said to encourage herself. “And Tonson once said that the only places the sun came into below stairs were the pantry and kitchen and it only stayed about an hour early in the morning. I must get there as soon as I can.”
When she had so dressed herself that the reflection the mirror gave back to her was of the nature of a slight physical stimulant9 she opened her bedroom door and faced exploration of the deserted10 house below with a quaking sense of the proportions of the inevitable11. She got down the narrow stairs casting a frightened glance at the emptiness of the drawing-rooms which seemed to stare at her as she passed them. There was sun in the dining-room and when she opened the sideboard she found some wine in decanters and some biscuits and even a few nuts and some raisins12 and oranges. She put them on the table and sat down and ate some of them and began to feel a little less shaky.
If she had been allowed time to sit longer and digest and reflect she might have reached the point of deciding on what she would write to Lord Coombe. She had not the pen of a ready writer and it must be thought over. But just when she was beginning to be conscious of the pleasant warmth of the sun which shone on her shoulders from the window, she was almost startled our of her chair by hearing again stealing down the staircase from the upper regions that faint wail3 like a little cat’s.
“Just the moment—the very moment I begin to feel a little quieted—and try to think—she begins again!” she cried out. “It’s worse then anything!”
Large crystal tears ran down her face and upon the polished table.
“I suppose she would starve to death if I didn’t give her some food—and then I should be blamed! People would be horrid13 about it. I’ve got nothing to eat myself.”
She must at any rate manage to stop the crying before she could write to Coombe. She would be obliged to go down into the pantry and look for some condensed milk. The creature had no teeth but perhaps she could mumble14 a biscuit or a few raisins. If she could be made to swallow a little port wine it might make her sleepy. The sun was paying its brief morning visit to the kitchen and pantry when she reached there, but a few cockroaches15 scuttled16 away before her and made her utter a hysterical17 little scream. But there was some condensed milk and there was a little warm water in a kettle because the fire was not quite out. She imperfectly mixed a decoction and filled a bottle which ought not to have been downstairs but had been brought and left there by Louisa as a result of tender moments with Edward.
When she put the bottle and some biscuits and scraps19 of cold ham on a tray because she could not carry them all in her hands, her sense of outrage20 and despair made her almost sob21.
“I am just like a servant—carrying trays upstairs,” she wept. “I—I might be Edward—or—or Louisa.” And her woe22 increased when she added in the dining-room the port wine and nuts and raisins and macaroons as viands23 which might somehow add to infant diet and induce sleep. She was not sure of course—but she knew they sucked things and liked sweets.
A baby left unattended to scream itself to sleep and awakening24 to scream itself to sleep again, does not present to a resentful observer the flowerlike bloom and beauty of infancy25. When Feather carried her tray into the Night Nursery and found herself confronting the disordered crib on which her offspring lay she felt the child horrible to look at. Its face was disfigured and its eyes almost closed. She trembled all over as she put the bottle to its mouth and saw the fiercely hungry clutch of its hands. It was old enough to clutch, and clutch it did, and suck furiously and starvingly—even though actually forced to stop once or twice at first to give vent26 to a thwarted27 remnant of a scream.
Feather had only seen it as downy whiteness and perfume in Louisa’s arms or in its carriage. It had been a singularly vivid and brilliant-eyed baby at whom people looked as they passed.
“Who will give her a bath?” wailed28 Feather. “Who will change her clothes? Someone must! Could a woman by the day do it? Cook said I could get a woman by the day.”
And then she remembered that one got servants from agencies. And where were the agencies? And even a woman “by the day” would demand wages and food to eat.
And then the front door bell rang.
What could she do—what could she do? Go downstairs and open the door herself and let everyone know! Let the ringer go on ringing until he was tired and went away? She was indeed hard driven, even though the wail had ceased as Robin clutched her bottle to her breast and fed with frenzy29. Let them go away—let them! And then came the wild thought that it might be Something—the Something which must happen when things were at their worst! And if it had come and the house seemed to be empty! She did not walk down the stairs, she ran. Her heart beat until she reached the door out of breath and when she opened it stood their panting.
The people who waited upon the steps were strangers. They were very nice looking and quite young—a man and a woman very perfectly18 dressed. The man took a piece of paper out of his pocketbook and handed it to her with an agreeable apologetic courtesy.
“I hope we have not called early enough to disturb you,” he said. “We waited until eleven but we are obliged to catch a train at half past. It is an ‘order to view’ from Carson & Bayle.” He added this because Feather was staring at the paper.
Carson & Bayle were the agents they had rented the house from. It was Carson & Bayle’s collector Robert had met on the threshold and sworn at two days before he had been taken ill. They were letting the house over her head and she would be turned out into the street?
The young man and woman finding themselves gazing at this exquisitely31 pretty creature in exquisite30 mourning, felt themselves appallingly32 embarrassed. She was plainly the widow Carson had spoken of. But why did she open the door herself? And why did she look as if she did not understand? Indignation against Carson & Bayle began to stir the young man.
“Beg pardon! So sorry! I am afraid we ought not to have come,” he protested. “Agents ought to know better. They said you were giving up the house at once and we were afraid someone might take it.”
“There—are no—no servants to show it to you,” she said. “If you could wait—a few days—perhaps—”
She was so lovely and Madame Hélène’s filmy black creation was in itself such an appeal, that the amiable34 young strangers gave up at once.
“Oh, certainly—certainly! Do excuse us! Carson and Bayle ought not to have—! We are so sorry. Good morning, good morning,” they gave forth35 in discomfited36 sympathy and politeness, and really quite scurried37 away.
Having shut the door on their retreat Feather stood shivering.
“I am going to be turned out of the house! I shall have to live in the street!” she thought. “Where shall I keep my clothes if I live in the street!”
Even she knew that she was thinking idiotically. Of course if everything was taken from you and sold, you would have no clothes at all, and wardrobes and drawers and closets would not matter. The realization38 that scarcely anything in the house had been paid for came home to her with a ghastly shock. She staggered upstairs to the first drawing-room in which there was a silly pretty little buhl writing table.
She felt even more senseless when she sank into a chair before it and drew a sheet of note-paper towards her. Her thoughts would not connect themselves with each other and she could not imagine what she ought to say in her letter to Coombe. In fact she seemed to have no thoughts at all. She could only remember the things which had happened, and she actually found she could write nothing else. There seemed nothing else in the world.
“Dear Lord Coombe,” trailed tremulously over the page—“The house is quite empty. The servants have gone away. I have no money. And there is not any food. And I am going to be turned out into the street—and the baby is crying because it is hungry.”
She stopped there, knowing it was not what she ought to say. And as she stopped and looked at the words she began herself to wail somewhat as Robin had wailed in the dark when she would not listen or go to her. It was like a beggar’s letter—a beggar’s! Telling him that she had no money and no food—and would be turned out for unpaid39 rent. And that the baby was crying because it was starving!
“It’s a beggar’s letter—just a beggar’s,” she cried out aloud to the empty room. “And it’s tru-ue!” Robin’s wail itself had not been more hopeless than hers was as she dropped her head and let it lie on the buhl table.
She was not however even to be allowed to let it lie there, for the next instant there fell on her startled ear quite echoing through the house another ring at the doorbell and two steely raps on the smart brass40 knocker. It was merely because she did not know what else to do, having just lost her wits entirely41 that she got up and trailed down the staircase again.
When she opened the door, Lord Coombe—the apotheosis42 of exquisite fitness in form and perfect appointment as also of perfect expression—was standing43 on the threshold.
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1
luxuriousness
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2
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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3
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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4
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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5
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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7
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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8
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
stimulant
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| n.刺激物，兴奋剂 | |
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10
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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11
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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12
raisins
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| n.葡萄干( raisin的名词复数 ) | |
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13
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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14
mumble
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| n./v.喃喃而语，咕哝 | |
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15
cockroaches
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| n.蟑螂( cockroach的名词复数 ) | |
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16
scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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17
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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18
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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19
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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20
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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21
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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22
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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23
viands
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| n.食品，食物 | |
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24
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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25
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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26
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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27
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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28
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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30
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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31
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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32
appallingly
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| 毛骨悚然地 | |
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33
snared
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| v.用罗网捕捉，诱陷，陷害( snare的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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discomfited
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| v.使为难( discomfit的过去式和过去分词)；使狼狈；使挫折；挫败 | |
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37
scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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38
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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39
unpaid
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| adj.未付款的，无报酬的 | |
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40
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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41
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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42
apotheosis
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| n.神圣之理想；美化；颂扬 | |
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43
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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