“The sooner she is surrounded by a new atmosphere, the better,” was one of the things the Frenchwoman had said. “The prospect1 of an arrangement so perfect and so secure fills me with the profoundest gratitude2. It is absolutely necessary that I return to my parents in Belgium. They are old and failing in health and need me greatly. I have been sad and anxious for months because I felt that it would be wickedness to desert this poor child. I have been torn in two. Now I can be at peace—thank the good God.”
“Bring her to me tomorrow if possible,” the Duchess said when they parted. “I foresee that I may have something to overcome in the fact that I am Lord Coombe’s old friend, but I hope to be able to overcome it.”
“She is a baby—she is of great beauty—she has a passionate3 little soul of which she knows nothing.” Mademoiselle Vallé said it with an anxious reflectiveness. “I have been afraid. If I were her mother——” her eyes sought those of the older woman.
“But she has no mother,” her grace answered. Her own eyes were serious. She knew something of girls, of young things, of the rush and tumult4 of young life in them and of the outlet5 it demanded. A baby who was of great beauty and of a passionate soul was no trivial undertaking6 for a rheumatic old duchess, but—“Bring her to me,” she said.
So was Robin7 brought to the tall Early Victorian mansion8 in the belatedly stately square. And the chief thought in her mind was that though mere9 good manners demanded under the circumstances that she should come to see the Dowager Duchess of Darte and be seen by her, if she found that she was like Lord Coombe, she would not be able to endure the prospect of a future spent in her service howsoever desirable such service might outwardly appear. This desirableness Mademoiselle Vallé had made clear to her. She was to be the companion of a personage of great and mature charm and grace who desired not mere attendance, but something more, which something included the warmth and fresh brightness of happy youth and bloom. She would do for her employer the things a young relative might do. She would have a suite10 of rooms of her own and a freedom as to hours and actions which greater experience on her part would have taught was not the customary portion meted11 out to a paid companion. But she knew nothing of paid service and a preliminary talk of Coombe’s with Mademoiselle Vallé had warned her against allowing any suspicion that this “earning a living” had been too obviously ameliorated.
“Her life is unusual. She herself is unusual in a most dignified12 and beautiful way. You will, it might almost be said, hold the position of a young lady in waiting,” was Mademoiselle’s gracefully13 put explanation.
When, after they had been ushered14 into the room where her grace sat in her beautiful and mellow15 corner by the fire, Robin advanced towards the highbacked chair, what the old woman was chiefly conscious of was the eyes which seemed all lustrous16 iris17. There was uncommon18 appeal and fear in them. The blackness of their setting of up-curled lashes19 made them look babyishly wide.
“Mademoiselle Vallé has told me of your wish to take a position as companion,” the Duchess said after they were seated.
“I want very much,” said Robin, “to support myself and Mademoiselle thinks that I might fill such a place if I am not considered too young.”
“You are not too young—for me. I want something young to come and befriend me. Am I too old for you?” Her smile had been celebrated20 fifty years earlier and it had not changed. A smile does not. She was not like Lord Coombe in any degree however remote. She did not belong to his world, Robin thought.
“If I can do well enough the things you require done,” she answered blushing her Jacqueminot rose blush, “I shall be grateful if you will let me try to do them. Mademoiselle will tell you that I have no experience, but that I am one who tries well.”
“Mademoiselle has answered all my questions concerning your qualifications so satisfactorily that I need ask you very few.”
Such questions as she asked were not of the order Robin had expected. She led her into talk and drew Mademoiselle Vallé into the conversation. It was talk which included personal views of books, old gardens and old houses, people, pictures and even—lightly—politics. Robin found herself quite incidentally, as it were, reading aloud to her an Italian poem. She ceased to be afraid and was at ease. She forgot Lord Coombe. The Duchess listening and watching her warmed to her task of delicate investigation21 and saw reason for anticipating agreeably stimulating22 things. She was not taking upon herself a merely benevolent23 duty which might assume weight and become a fatigue24. In fact she might trust Coombe for that. After all it was he who had virtually educated the child—little as she was aware of the singular fact. It was he who had dragged her forth25 from her dog kennel26 of a top floor nursery and quaintly27 incongruous as it seemed, had found her a respectable woman for a nurse and an intelligent person for a governess and companion as if he had been a domesticated28 middle class widower29 with a little girl to play mother to. She saw in the situation more than others would have seen in it, but she saw also the ironic30 humour of it. Coombe—with the renowned31 cut of his overcoat—the perfection of his line and scarcely to be divined suggestions of hue—Coombe!
She did not avoid all mention of his name during the interview, but she spoke32 of him only casually33, and though the salary she offered was an excellent one, it was not inordinate34. Robin could not feel that she was not being accepted as of the class of young persons who support themselves self-respectingly, though even the most modest earned income would have represented wealth to her ignorance.
Before they parted she had obtained the position so pleasantly described by Mademoiselle Vallé as being something like that of a young lady in waiting. “But I am really a companion and I will do everything—everything I can so that I shall be worth keeping,” she thought seriously. She felt that she should want to be kept. If Lord Coombe was a friend of her employer’s it was because the Duchess did not know what others knew. And her house was not his house—and the hideous35 thing she had secretly loathed36 would be at an end. She would be supporting herself as decently and honestly as Mademoiselle or Dowie had supported themselves all their lives.
With an air of incidentally recalling a fact, the Duchess said after they had risen to leave her:
“Mademoiselle Vallé tells me you have an elderly nurse you are very fond of. She seems to belong to a class of servants almost extinct.”
“I love her,” Robin faltered37—because the sudden reminder38 brought back a pang39 to her. There was a look in her eyes which faltered also. “She loves me. I don’t know how——” but there she stopped.
“Such women are very valuable to those who know the meaning of their type. I myself am always in search of it. My dear Miss Brent was of it, though of a different class.”
“But most people do not know,” said Robin. “It seems old-fashioned to them—and it’s beautiful! Dowie is an angel.”
“I should like to secure your Dowie for my housekeeper40 and myself,”—one of the greatest powers of the celebrated smile was its power to convince. “A competent person is needed to take charge of the linen41. If we can secure an angel we shall be fortunate.”
A day or so later she said to Coombe in describing the visit.
“The child’s face is wonderful. If you could but have seen her eyes when I said it. It is not the mere beauty of size and shape and colour which affect one. It is something else. She is a little flame of feeling.”
The “something else” was in the sound of her voice as she answered.
“She will be in the same house with me! Sometimes perhaps I may see her and talk to her! Oh! how grateful I am!” She might even see and talk to her as often as she wished, it revealed itself and when she and Mademoiselle got into their hansom cab to drive away, she caught at the Frenchwoman’s hand and clung to it, her eyelashes wet,
“It is as if there must be Goodness which takes care of one,” she said. “I used to believe in it so—until I was afraid of all the world. Dowie means most of all. I did not know how I could bear to let her go away. And since her husband and her daughter died, she has no one but me. I should have had no one but her if you had gone back to Belgium, Mademoiselle. And now she will be safe in the same house with me. Perhaps the Duchess will keep her until she dies. I hope she will keep me until I die. I will be as good and faithful as Dowie and perhaps the Duchess will live until I am quite old—and not pretty any more. And I will make economies as you have made them, Mademoiselle, and save all my salary—and I might be able to end my days in a little cottage in the country.”
Mademoiselle was conscious of an actual physical drag at her heartstrings. The pulsating42 glow of her young loveliness had never been more moving and oh! the sublime43 certainty of her unconsciousness that Life lay between this hour and that day when she was “quite old and not pretty any more” and having made economies could die in a little cottage in the country! She believed in her vision as she had believed that Donal would come to her in the garden.
Upon Feather the revelation that her daughter had elected to join the ranks of girls who were mysteriously determined44 to be responsible for themselves produced a curious combination of effects. It was presented to her by Lord Coombe in the form of a simple impersonal45 statement which had its air of needing no explanation. She heard it with eyes widening a little and a smile slowly growing. Having heard, she broke into a laugh, a rather high-pitched treble laugh.
“Really?” she said. “She is really going to do it? To take a situation! She wants to be independent and ‘live her own life!’ What a joke—for a girl of mine!” She was either really amused or chose to seem so.
“What do you think of it?” she asked when she stopped laughing. Her eyes had curiosity in them.
“I like it,” he answered.
“Of course. I ought to have remembered that you helped her to an Early Victorian duchess. She’s one without a flaw—the Dowager Duchess of Darte. The most conscientiously46 careful mother couldn’t object. It’s almost like entering into the kingdom of heaven—in a dull way.” She began to laugh again as if amusing images rose suddenly before her. “And what does the Duchess think of it?” she said after her laughter had ceased again. “How does she reconcile herself to the idea of a companion whose mother she wouldn’t have in her house?”
“We need not enter into that view of the case. You decided47 some years ago that it did not matter to you whether Early Victorian duchesses included you in their visiting lists or did not. More modern ones do I believe—quite beautiful and amusing ones.”
“But for that reason I want this one and those like her. They would bore me, but I want them. I want them to come to my house and be polite to me in their stuffy48 way. I want to be invited to their hideous dinner parties and see them sitting round their tables in their awful family jewels ‘talking of the sad deaths of kings.’ That’s Shakespeare, you know. I heard it last night at the theatre.”
“Why do you want it?” Coombe inquired.
“When I ask you why you show your morbid49 interest in Robin, you say you don’t know. I don’t know—but I do want it.”
She suddenly flushed, she even showed her small teeth. For an extraordinary moment she looked like a little cat.
“Robin will hare it,” she cried, grinding a delicate fist into the palm on her knee. “She’s not eighteen and she’s a beauty and she’s taken up by a perfectly50 decent old duchess. She’ll have everything! The Dowager will marry her to someone important. You’ll help,” she turned on him in a flame of temper. “You are capable of marrying her yourself!” There was a a brief but entire silence. It was broken by his saying,
“She is not capable of marrying me.”
There was brief but entire silence again, and it was he who again broke it, his manner at once cool and reasonable.
“It is better not to exhibit this kind of feeling. Let us be quite frank. There are few things you feel more strongly than that you do not want your daughter in the house. When she was a child you told me that you detested51 the prospect of having her on your hands. She is being disposed of in the most easily explained and enviable manner.”
“It’s true—it’s true,” Feather murmured. She began to see advantages and the look of a little cat died out, or at least modified itself into that of a little cat upon whom dawned prospects52 of cream. No mood ever held her very long. “She won’t come back to stay,” she said. “The Duchess won’t let her. I can use her rooms and I shall be very glad to have them. There’s at least some advantage in figuring as a sort of Dame53 Aux Camelias.”
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1
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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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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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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meted
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| v.（对某人）施以，给予（处罚等）( mete的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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lustrous
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| adj.有光泽的；光辉的 | |
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iris
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| n.虹膜，彩虹 | |
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uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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kennel
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| n.狗舍，狗窝 | |
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quaintly
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| adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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domesticated
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| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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renowned
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| adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的 | |
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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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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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40
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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42
pulsating
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| adj.搏动的，脉冲的v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的现在分词 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动 | |
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43
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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48
stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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49
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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50
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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51
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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52
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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53
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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