The following day my uncle was near himself again, and we left the Flask1 inn and took lodging2 with the widow Puddephatt. The Playstow was a little green, about half-way down the village, where the villagers reared their may-pole on May-day, and built their fires on Midsummer’s Eve, and caroused3 in September on the harvest-largesse won from passers-by. Round about, in a little square, were cottages, detached and exclusive, the élite of Dunberry; and to one side was the church—but now in process of completion—in whose porch the daring would seat themselves on St. Mark’s eve to see, at midnight, the wraiths4 of the year’s pre-doomed come and knock at the door. Mr. Sant had, however, limited that custom, as well as some others less reputable; and the fact that he was able to do so spoke5 volumes for his persuasiveness6. At the present time the villagers, under his stimulus7, were transferring, stone by stone, to the long unfinished fabric8 and its adjoining school-house, the less sacred parts of the ruined foundation on the hill.
Mrs. Puddephatt, though Dunberry-born, was a comparative acquisition to the village, to which she had been summoned, and to her natural succession in No. 3, the Playstow, through the death of an only sister without encumbrances9. She had, in fact, gone very young, a great many years ago, into service in London, and had never set foot again in her native place until this inheritance, now two years old, had called her. She brought with her an ironic10 atmosphere of the great world, and a disdainful tolerance11 towards the little, in which her lot was now to vegetate12. She had, in her high experience, “’tweenied,” “obliged,” scullery-maided, kitchen-maided, house-maided, parlour-maided, and old-maided; and she had somehow emerged from this five-fold chrysalis of virginity the widow Puddephatt—no one knew by what warrant, other than that of a sort of waspish charity-girl cap, with a knuckle-bone frill round her face. But then her knowledge of men was so matrimonial that it was admitted nothing but a husband could have inspired it. Her dictums, in respect to this mystic experience, were merum sal to the wives of Dunberry.
“Look in the pot for your new gownd,” and “The way to a man’s purse is through his mouth,” may be bracketed for utterances13 cryptic14 to the “general,” but not to their delighted understandings.
“A hopen ’and comes empty ’ome.”
“A man shuts his sweet’art’s mouth with a kiss, but his wife’s heyes.”
“Be careful of a Saturday morning to mend the ’ole in your man’s pocket.”
“When your ’usband talks of his hage, be sure he means yours.”
Such and the like shrewd axioms served the widow Puddephatt at least as well as marriage lines; and, if more were needed, her mastery of the exact science of nagging15 and of the conquering resource of hysterics supplied it. Sometimes, it was whispered, she was to be seen in her front garden viciously dusting a man’s coat with a stick; and on this moral implication alone, late tavern16 roysterers, lurching home after closing-time past the little wicket where she was often to be seen watching spectral17 and ironic, had been known to slink by, meanly conscious of deserting, and surrendering into her gloating hands a purely18 imaginary Puddephatt, their late boon19 companion.
This tremendous lady undertook the care of us with infinite condescension20, and, hearing that we were Londoners bred, gathered us at once under the protection of her maternal21 and metropolitan22 wing.
“Lork, Fancy-Maria!” she would say, with an air of amused tolerance towards the little Suffolk rawbones who “generalled” for her; “we don’t breathe on the knives and polish ’em in our haprons in London!” Or, “That won’t do, Fancy-Maria! We know better in London than to dust the ’ot plates with our helbers.”
With this shibboleth23 of sarcastic24 comparison, she had won, not only Fancy-Maria, but all feminine Dunberry to a perspiring25 emulation26 of her gentility, so that in the course of her two years the social code had grown quite elevated, and it was no longer fashionable to dine in one’s shirt-sleeves.
Fancy-Maria was her adoring, but unable lieutenant27. She tried hard, and breathed very hard; yet her fervour led to frequent disaster. It was the management of trays that tested her most severely28. If she rose with one from the depths, she invariably struck it against the lintel of the parlour door, and shot everything from it into the hall. If she descended29 with one from the heights, she tripped at the corner where the stairs turned, and tobogganed down on it the rest of the way, preceded by an avalanche30 of cups and dishes. She always did her best to keep the contents steady with her thumbs; but her thumbs, though large, were not universal, and were generally occupied in holding secure the bread and butter, for choice, on one side, and the fried fish on the other. Some people make a point of leaving a little piece on each dish “for manners.” We always cut out and left Fancy-Maria’s thumb-marks for that mysterious retainer of our childhood.
It was not long before Uncle Jenico questioned Mrs. Puddephatt about the earthquake. She turned up her nose at the first mention of it, and tittered the shrillest sarcasm31.
“Lork, sir!” she said, “you’ve never abin took hin by that stuff! And you a Londoner!”
She cocked her head and folded her arms across her chest, like a tricksy saint in an old woodcut.
“I wouldn’t a’ believed it of you,” she said; “no, not if you’d gone and took me by the ears and battered33 my ’ed on the table.”
“But, my good woman,” began my uncle, “Mr. Sant——”
“Bless ’im for a hinnercent suckling-dove o’cooing among the sarpints!” she interrupted, with a tight little laugh.
We looked at her quite bewildered, and Uncle Jenico was evidently at a loss for an answer.
“What ’e wants, that ’e believes,” said Mrs. Puddephatt, nodding her head many times. “But he ain’t a Londoner, and hi ham!”
The advantage, one would have thought, lay with the untainted clergyman.
“Herthquake, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Puddephatt, with withering34 contempt. “And grace took hout of it? No, sir; not more than what Elijah looked to find in his’n, and was deceived in the Almighty35. A fine show convert we’ve got in our Mr. Rampick, haven’t we? Ho, yes! Tee-hee! And I ’opes as he makes it pay, sinst the loss of his liveli’ood by the herthquake.”
The amount of scorn she got each time into the word was simply blasting.
“He lost——” began my uncle, surprised.
“Ah! what would he lose, now?” interrupted the lady, acridly36 humorous. “That’s just hit, sir. Talked of the wicked smugglers to Master Bowen here, didn’t he? Well, supposin’ he were hisself the most howtdacious of the lot? I don’t say he was, you know. I wouldn’t so commit myself. I merely states as a curious fact that this Rampick, as was formerly38 as warm and dangerous a man as the best in the place, is, sinst the herthquake, become a loafer, without any visible means of substance. Ho, yes! A pretty convert, I don’t think!”
“Sir,” she answered, with dignity, “I thank you for the himplication; but whatever my apperient greenness, I wasn’t born yesterday. We may have our faults in London, but to be Suffolk paunches isn’t among them. Once a smuggler, sir, is halways a smuggler.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mrs. Puddephatt; “just as to be born a gipsy is to laugh at the rates. A ’ottentot, sir, isn’t ashamed of his own nekkedness, nor a smuggler of his smugness. Reform, hindeed!”
“Well, well,” said Uncle Jenico. “But what makes you suppose it wasn’t an earthquake?”
“In London, sir,” she said, “herthquakes—as is p’raps beknownst to you—sends out sulfurious perfumes, and not the heffluvium of brandy.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed my uncle. “But what——?”
“I reveal nothing, Mr. Paxton,” she interrupted him, “but what my nose tells me. You may smell it yet, sir, begging your pardon, about the Mitre.”
“But——”
“I’ve ’eard tell, sir, of ile wells, but never of brandy. I may be wrong; and halso I may be wrong in doubting that gunpowder41 forms of itself in the ’oller places of the herth,” and with these enigmatic words she left us.
But it must be said that, for all her withering gentility, she made us an excellent landlady, as we had full opportunity of proving. For—I may as well out with it at once—we had come to Dunberry to stay.
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1
flask
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| n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱 | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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caroused
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| v.痛饮，闹饮欢宴( carouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wraiths
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| n.幽灵( wraith的名词复数 )；（传说中人在将死或死后不久的）显形阴魂 | |
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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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6
persuasiveness
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| 说服力 | |
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stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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8
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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encumbrances
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| n.负担( encumbrance的名词复数 )；累赘；妨碍；阻碍 | |
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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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tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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vegetate
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| v.无所事事地过活 | |
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utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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cryptic
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| adj.秘密的，神秘的，含义模糊的 | |
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nagging
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| adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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spectral
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| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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boon
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| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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condescension
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| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
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maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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shibboleth
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| n.陈规陋习；口令；暗语 | |
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sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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perspiring
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的现在分词 ) | |
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emulation
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| n.竞争；仿效 | |
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27
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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avalanche
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| n.雪崩，大量涌来 | |
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sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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withering
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| 使人畏缩的，使人害羞的，使人难堪的 | |
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almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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acridly
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| adj.辛辣的；刺鼻的；（性格、态度、言词等）刻薄的；尖刻的 | |
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smuggler
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| n.走私者 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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39
abashed
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| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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gunpowder
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| n.火药 | |
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