The greatest wonder of all was the way Mrs. Beale addressed her announcement, so far as could be judged, equally to Mrs. Wix, who, as if from sudden failure of strength, sank into a chair while Maisie surrendered to the visitor's embrace. As soon as the child was liberated1 she met with profundity2 Mrs. Wix's stupefaction and actually was able to see that while in a manner sustaining the encounter her face yet seemed with intensity3 to say: "Now, for God's sake, don't crow 'I told you so!'" Maisie was somehow on the spot aware of an absence of disposition4 to crow; it had taken her but an extra minute to arrive at such a quick survey of the objects surrounding Mrs. Beale as showed that among them was no appurtenance of Sir Claude's. She knew his dressing-bag now—oh with the fondest knowledge!—and there was an instant during which its not being there was a stroke of the worst news. She was yet to learn what it could be to recognise in some lapse5 of a sequence the proof of an extinction6, and therefore remained unaware7 that this momentary8 pang9 was a foretaste of the experience of death. It of course yielded in a flash to Mrs. Beale's brightness, it gasped11 itself away in her own instant appeal. "You've come alone?"
"Without Sir Claude?" Strangely, Mrs. Beale looked even brighter. "Yes; in the eagerness to get at you. You abominable12 little villain13!"—and her stepmother, laughing clear, administered to her cheek a pat that was partly a pinch. "What were you up to and what did you take me for? But I'm glad to be abroad, and after all it's you who have shown me the way. I mightn't, without you, have been able to come—to come, that is, so soon. Well, here I am at any rate and in a moment more I should have begun to worry about you. This will do very well"—she was good-natured about the place and even presently added that it was charming. Then with a rosier14 glow she made again her great point: "I'm free, I'm free!" Maisie made on her side her own: she carried back her gaze to Mrs. Wix, whom amazement15 continued to hold; she drew afresh her old friend's attention to the superior way she didn't take that up. What she did take up the next minute was the question of Sir Claude. "Where is he? Won't he come?"
Mrs. Beale's consideration of this oscillated with a smile between the two expectancies16 with which she was flanked: it was conspicuous17, it was extraordinary, her unblinking acceptance of Mrs. Wix, a miracle of which Maisie had even now begun to read a reflexion in that lady's long visage. "He'll come, but we must make him!" she gaily18 brought forth19.
"Make him?" Maisie echoed.
"We must give him time. We must play our cards."
"My dear child, he has promised me awfully; I mean lots of things, and not in every case kept his promise to the letter." Mrs. Beale's good humour insisted on taking for granted Mrs. Wix's, to whom her attention had suddenly grown prodigious21. "I dare say he has done the same with you, and not always come to time. But he makes it up in his own way—and it isn't as if we didn't know exactly what he is. There's one thing he is," she went on, "which makes everything else only a question, for us, of tact22." They scarce had time to wonder what this was before, as they might have said, it flew straight into their face. "He's as free as I am!"
"Yes, I know," said Maisie; as if, however, independently weighing the value of that. She really weighed also the oddity of her stepmother's treating it as news to her, who had been the first person literally23 to whom Sir Claude had mentioned it. For a few seconds, as if with the sound of it in her ears, she stood with him again, in memory and in the twilight24, in the hotel garden at Folkestone.
Anything Mrs. Beale overlooked was, she indeed divined, but the effect of an exaltation of high spirits, a tendency to soar that showed even when she dropped—still quite impartially—almost to the confidential25. "Well, then—we've only to wait. He can't do without us long. I'm sure, Mrs. Wix, he can't do without you! He's devoted26 to you; he has told me so much about you. The extent I count on you, you know, count on you to help me—" was an extent that even all her radiance couldn't express. What it couldn't express quite as much as what it could made at any rate every instant her presence and even her famous freedom loom27 larger; and it was this mighty28 mass that once more led her companions, bewildered and disjoined, to exchange with each other as through a thickening veil confused and ineffectual signs. They clung together at least on the common ground of unpreparedness, and Maisie watched without relief the havoc29 of wonder in Mrs. Wix. It had reduced her to perfect impotence, and, but that gloom was black upon her, she sat as if fascinated by Mrs. Beale's high style. It had plunged30 her into a long deep hush31; for what had happened was the thing she had least allowed for and before which the particular rigour she had worked up could only grow limp and sick. Sir Claude was to have reappeared with his accomplice32 or without her; never, never his accomplice without him. Mrs. Beale had gained apparently33 by this time an advantage she could pursue: she looked at the droll34 dumb figure with jesting reproach. "You really won't shake hands with me? Never mind; you'll come round!" She put the matter to no test, going on immediately and, instead of offering her hand, raising it, with a pretty gesture that her bent35 head met, to a long black pin that played a part in her back hair. "Are hats worn at luncheon36? If you're as hungry as I am we must go right down."
Mrs. Wix stuck fast, but she met the question in a voice her pupil scarce recognised. "I wear mine."
Mrs. Beale, swallowing at one glance her brand-new bravery, which she appeared at once to refer to its origin and to follow in its flights, accepted this as conclusive37. "Oh but I've not such a beauty!" Then she turned rejoicingly to Maisie. "I've got a beauty for you my dear."
"A beauty?"
"A love of a hat—in my luggage. I remembered that"—she nodded at the object on her stepdaughter's head—"and I've brought you one with a peacock's breast. It's the most gorgeous blue!"
It was too strange, this talking with her there already not about Sir Claude but about peacocks—too strange for the child to have the presence of mind to thank her. But the felicity in which she had arrived was so proof against everything that Maisie felt more and more the depth of the purpose that must underlie38 it. She had a vague sense of its being abysmal39, the spirit with which Mrs. Beale carried off the awkwardness, in the white and gold salon40, of such a want of breath and of welcome. Mrs. Wix was more breathless than ever; the embarrassment41 of Mrs. Beale's isolation42 was as nothing to the embarrassment of her grace. The perception of this dilemma43 was the germ on the child's part of a new question altogether. What if with this indulgence—? But the idea lost itself in something too frightened for hope and too conjectured44 for fear; and while everything went by leaps and bounds one of the waiters stood at the door to remind them that the table d'hôte was half over.
"Had you come up to wash hands?" Mrs. Beale hereupon asked them. "Go and do it quickly and I'll be with you: they've put my boxes in that nice room—it was Sir Claude's. Trust him," she laughed, "to have a nice one!" The door of a neighbouring room stood open, and now from the threshold, addressing herself again to Mrs. Wix, she launched a note that gave the very key of what, as she would have said, she was up to. "Dear lady, please attend to my daughter."
She was up to a change of deportment so complete that it represented—oh for offices still honourably45 subordinate if not too explicitly46 menial—an absolute coercion47, an interested clutch of the old woman's respectability. There was response, to Maisie's view, I may say at once, in the jump of that respectability to its feet: it was itself capable of one of the leaps, one of the bounds just mentioned, and it carried its charge, with this momentum48 and while Mrs. Beale popped into Sir Claude's chamber49, straight away to where, at the end of the passage, pupil and governess were quartered. The greatest stride of all, for that matter, was that within a few seconds the pupil had, in another relation, been converted into a daughter. Maisie's eyes were still following it when, after the rush, with the door almost slammed and no thought of soap and towels, the pair stood face to face. Mrs. Wix, in this position, was the first to gasp10 a sound. "Can it ever be that she has one?"
Maisie felt still more bewildered. "One what?"
"Why moral sense."
They spoke50 as if you might have two, but Mrs. Wix looked as if it were not altogether a happy thought, and Maisie didn't see how even an affirmative from her own lips would clear up what had become most of a mystery. It was to this larger puzzle she sprang pretty straight. "Is she my mother now?"
It was a point as to which an horrific glimpse of the responsibility of an opinion appeared to affect Mrs. Wix like a blow in the stomach. She had evidently never thought of it; but she could think and rebound51. "If she is, he's equally your father."
Maisie, however, thought further. "Then my father and my mother—!"
But she had already faltered52 and Mrs. Wix had already glared back: "Ought to live together? Don't begin it again!" She turned away with a groan53, to reach the washing-stand, and Maisie could by this time recognise with a certain ease that that way verily madness did lie. Mrs. Wix gave a great untidy splash, but the next instant had faced round. "She has taken a new line."
"What she thinks so—'go and dress the young lady!' But it's something!" she panted. Then she thought out the rest. "If he won't have her, why she'll have you. She'll be the one."
"The one to keep me abroad?"
"The one to give you a home." Mrs. Wix saw further; she mastered all the portents55. "Oh she's cruelly clever! It's not a moral sense." She reached her climax56: "It's a game!"
"A game?"
"Not to lose him. She has sacrificed him—to her duty."
"Then won't he come?" Maisie pleaded.
Mrs. Wix made no answer; her vision absorbed her. "He has fought. But she has won."
"Then won't he come?" the child repeated.
For all Maisie minded! "Soon—to-morrow?"
"Too soon—whenever. Indecently soon."
"But then we shall be together!" the child went on. It made Mrs. Wix look at her as if in exasperation58; but nothing had time to come before she precipitated59: "Together with you!" The air of criticism continued, but took voice only in her companion's bidding her wash herself and come down. The silence of quick ablutions fell upon them, presently broken, however, by one of Maisie's sudden reversions. "Mercy, isn't she handsome?"
Mrs. Wix had finished; she waited. "She'll attract attention." They were rapid, and it would have been noticed that the shock the beauty had given them acted, incongruously, as a positive spur to their preparations for rejoining her. She had none the less, when they returned to the sitting-room60, already descended61; the open door of her room showed it empty and the chambermaid explained. Here again they were delayed by another sharp thought of Mrs. Wix's. "But what will she live on meanwhile?"
Maisie stopped short. "Till Sir Claude comes?"
It was nothing to the violence with which her friend had been arrested. "Who'll pay the bills?"
Maisie thought. "Can't she?"
"She? She hasn't a penny."
The child wondered. "But didn't papa—?"
"Leave her a fortune?" Mrs. Wix would have appeared to speak of papa as dead had she not immediately added: "Why he lives on other women!"
Oh yes, Maisie remembered. "Then can't he send—" She faltered again; even to herself it sounded queer.
"Some of their money to his wife?" Mrs. Wix pave a laugh still stranger than the weird62 suggestion. "I dare say she'd take it!"
They hurried on again; yet again, on the stairs, Maisie pulled up. "Well, if she had stopped in England—!" she threw out.
Mrs. Wix considered. "And he had come over instead?"
"Yes, as we expected." Maisie launched her speculation63. "What then would she have lived on?"
Mrs. Wix hung fire but an instant. "On other men!" And she marched downstairs.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
liberated
|
|
| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
profundity
|
|
| n.渊博；深奥，深刻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
intensity
|
|
| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
disposition
|
|
| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
lapse
|
|
| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
extinction
|
|
| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
unaware
|
|
| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
momentary
|
|
| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
pang
|
|
| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
gasp
|
|
| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
gasped
|
|
| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
abominable
|
|
| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
villain
|
|
| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
rosier
|
|
| Rosieresite | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
amazement
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
expectancies
|
|
| 期待，期望( expectancy的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
conspicuous
|
|
| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
gaily
|
|
| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
awfully
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
prodigious
|
|
| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
tact
|
|
| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
literally
|
|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
twilight
|
|
| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
confidential
|
|
| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
loom
|
|
| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
havoc
|
|
| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
plunged
|
|
| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
hush
|
|
| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
accomplice
|
|
| n.从犯，帮凶，同谋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
droll
|
|
| adj.古怪的，好笑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
luncheon
|
|
| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
conclusive
|
|
| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
underlie
|
|
| v.位于...之下，成为...的基础 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
abysmal
|
|
| adj.无底的，深不可测的，极深的；糟透的，极坏的；完全的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
salon
|
|
| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
embarrassment
|
|
| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
isolation
|
|
| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
dilemma
|
|
| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
conjectured
|
|
| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
honourably
|
|
| adv.可尊敬地，光荣地，体面地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
explicitly
|
|
| ad.明确地，显然地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
coercion
|
|
| n.强制，高压统治 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
momentum
|
|
| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
chamber
|
|
| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
rebound
|
|
| v.弹回；n.弹回，跳回 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
faltered
|
|
| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
groan
|
|
| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
concurred
|
|
| 同意（concur的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
portents
|
|
| n.预兆( portent的名词复数 )；征兆；怪事；奇物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
climax
|
|
| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
profane
|
|
| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
exasperation
|
|
| n.愤慨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
precipitated
|
|
| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
sitting-room
|
|
| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
weird
|
|
| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
speculation
|
|
| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |