JANE-ELLEN was shaking out her last dishcloth, her head turned well over her shoulder to avoid the shower of spray that came from it. He seated himself on the kitchen-table, and watched her for some time in silence.
"And is that the way you treat all presents, Jane-Ellen," he asked, "throwing them to Willoughby to tear to pieces?"
"That was not a present, sir. Presents are between equals, I've always thought."
"Then, Jane-Ellen, I don't see how you can ever hope to get any."
She looked at him and smiled. "Your talk is too deep and clever for a poor girl like me to understand, sir."
He smiled back. "They've all gone, Jane-Ellen," he said.
The news did not seem to disturb the cook in the least. Reed would have been shocked by the calmness with which she received it.
"And now you're all alone, sir," she replied.
"Absolutely alone."
She was still pattering about the kitchen, putting the last things to rights, but—or so it seemed to Crane—a little busier than her occupation warranted.
"They left early, sir, didn't they? But then it did not seem to me that they were really enjoying themselves, not even Mr. Lefferts, though he is such an amusing gentleman. Every one seemed sad, sir, except you."
"I was sad, too, Jane-Ellen."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Something was said at dinner that distressed1 me deeply."
"By whom, sir?"
"By you."
She did not stop her work nor seem very much surprised, but of course she asked what her unfortunate speech had been.
"I was sorry to hear you say you believed in Miss Revelly's triple engagement."
At this she did stop short, and immediately in his vicinity. "But I did not know you knew Miss Revelly."
"Yet I do."
"And when I was describing her—"
"It was as if I saw her before me."
"I am sorry I said anything about a friend of yours, sir. I had supposed she was quite a stranger to you."
"Sometimes it seems to me, too, as if she were a stranger," Crane answered. "Each time I see her, Jane-Ellen, she seems to me so lovely and wonderful and miraculous2 that it is as if I saw her for the first time. Sometimes when I am away from her it seems to me quite ridiculous to believe that such a creature exists in this rather tiresome3 old world, and I feel like rushing back from wherever I am to assure myself that she isn't just a creation of my own passionate4 desire. In this sense, I think she will always be a stranger, always be a surprise to me even if I should have the great felicity of spending the rest of my days with her. Does it bore you, Jane-Ellen, to hear me talking this way about my own feelings?"
Jane-Ellen did not answer; indeed something seemed to suggest that she could not speak, but she shook her head and Burton went on.
"So you see why it distressed me to hear from so good an authority as yourself that she had already engaged herself three times. It is not that I am of a jealous nature, Jane-Ellen, but when I ask her to be my wife, if she should say yes, I should want to feel sure that that meant—"
"Oh, Mr. Crane!" said Jane-Ellen, "I said that to make Mr. Reed angry."
"And there was no truth in it?"
"Well," she admitted, "there was some truth in it. They were not exactly engagements. We think in this part of the world that there's something almost too harsh in a flat no—oh! the truth is," she added, suddenly changing her tone, "that girls don't know what they're doing until they find that they have fallen in love themselves."
"And do you think by any chance that this revelation may have come to Miss Revelly?"
"I know right well it has," answered Jane-Ellen.
"Oh, my dear love!" cried Crane and took her into his arms.
The kitchen clock, loudly ticking, looked down upon them on one side, and Willoughby, loudly purring, looked up at them from the other, and a good deal of ticking and purring was done before Claudia broke the silence by saying, like one to whom a good idea has come rather late:
"But I never said it was through you that the revelation came."
"You mustn't say that it hasn't even in fun—not yet."
"When may I?"
"When we've been married five years."
Sometime later, when, that is to say, they had talked a little longer in the kitchen, and then shut it up for the night, and had gone and sat a little while in the parlor6 so that he might realize that she really was Miss Claudia Revelly, and they had sat a little while in the office so that she might act out for him the impression he had made an her during that first famous interview when he had reproved her conduct, when all these important conversations had taken place, Crane at last took her hand and said gravely: "I mustn't keep you up any longer. Good night, my darling." And he added, after an instant, "I'm so glad—so grateful—that your mind doesn't work like Reed's and Tucker's."
"Like theirs—in what way?"
"I'm glad you haven't thought it necessary to make any protest at our being here alone."
"How foolish, Burton, of course I trust you absolutely, only—"
"Only what—"
She evidently felt that it was a moment when something decisive must be done, for she came and laid her head, not on his shoulder, but as near as she could reach, which was about in the turn of his elbow.
His arm was coldly limp. "Only what?" he repeated.
"Only we're not really alone."
"What do you mean, Claudia?"
"They're all here—my brothers and sister."
"What, Smithfield, and Lily, and even Brindlebury?"
She nodded in as much space as she had.
"Where are they?" he asked.
"They're playing Coon-Can in the garret. And oh," she added with a sudden spasm8 of recollection, "they'll be so hungry! They haven't had anything to eat for ages. I promised to bring them something as soon as the house was quiet, only you put everything out of my head."
"We'll give them a party in the dining-room—our first," said Crane. "I'll write the invitation, and we'll send Lefferts to the garret with it."
"Don't you think I'd better go up and explain?" said Claudia.
"The invitation will explain," answered Burton. It read: "Mr. Burton Crane and Miss Claudia Revelly request the pleasure of the Revellys' company at supper immediately."
They roused Lefferts, who had by this time fallen into a comfortable sleep. "Just run up and give this note to the people you'll find in the garret, there's a good fellow," said Crane.
Lefferts sat up, rubbing his eyes. "The people I'll find in the garret," he murmured. "But how about the little black men in the chimney, and the ghosts who live in the wall? This is the strangest house, Crane, the very strangest house I ever knew." But he took the note and wandered slowly upstairs with it, shaking his head.
On the landing of the second story, his eye caught the whisk of a skirt, and pursuing it instantly, he came upon Lily. He cornered her in the angle of the stairs.
"Hold on," he said, "I have a note for you, at least I have if you are one of the people who live in the garret."
Lily, knowing nothing of the explanation that had taken place between Reed and Crane, was not a little alarmed at being thus caught in a house from which she had been so recently dismissed. She did not think quickly in a crisis, and now she could find nothing to say but "I don't exactly live in the garret."
"How interesting it would be," observed Lefferts, "if you would sit down here on the stairs and tell me who you are."
"There's nothing to tell," said Lily, wondering what she had better admit. "I'm just the housemaid."
"Oh," cried Lefferts, "then there are lots of things to tell. I have always wanted to ask housemaids a number of questions. For instance, why is it that you always drop the broom with which you sweep the stairs at six in the morning? Why do you fancy it will conduce to any one's comfort to shut the blinds and turn on all the lights in a bedroom on a hot summer evening? Why do you hide the pillows and extra covering so that one never finds them until one is packing to go away the next morning? If you are a housemaid, you do these things; and if you do these things, you must know why you do them."
Lily smiled. "I'm afraid I was a very poor housemaid," she answered. "Anyhow, I'm not even that any more. I was dismissed."
"Indeed," said Lefferts. "Now that must be an interesting experience. I have had several perfectly9 good businesses drop from under me, but I have never been dismissed. Might I ask what led to it in your case?"
A reminiscent smile stole over Lily's face. "Mr. Crane dismissed me," she said, "for saying something which I believe he thought himself. I called Mrs. Falkener an old harridan10."
Lefferts shouted with pleasure.
"If Crane had had a spark of intellectual honesty, he'd have raised your wages," he said. "It's just what he wanted to say himself."
"Oh! I was glad to be dismissed," returned she. "I never approved of the whole plan anyhow." And then fearing she had betrayed too much, she added, "And now you might tell me who you are."
"My name is Lefferts."
"Any relation to the poet?"
It would be impossible to deny that this unexpected proof of his fame was agreeable to Lefferts. The conversation on the stairs became more absorbing, and the note was less likely to be delivered at all.
In the meantime Claudia, while setting the table in the dining-room, had sent Crane down to the kitchen floor to get something out of the ice-box. As Crane approached this object about which so many sentimental11 recollections gathered, he saw he had been anticipated. A figure was already busy extracting from it a well-filled plate. At his step, the figure turned quickly. It was Brindlebury.
Even Brindlebury seemed to appreciate that, after all that had occurred in connection with his last departure, to be caught once again in Crane's house was a serious matter. It would have been easy enough to save himself by a confession12 that he was one of the Revellys, but to tell this without the consent of his brother and sisters would have been considered traitorous13 in the extreme.
He backed away from the ice-box. "Mr. Crane," he said, with unusual seriousness, "you probably feel that an explanation is due you." And there he stopped, not being able at the moment to think of anything to say.
Crane took pity on him. "Brindlebury," he said, "it would be ungenerous of me to conceal14 from you that our relative positions are reversed. At the present moment the power is all in your hands. Have a cigarette. I believe you used to like this brand."
"Only when I had smoked all my own."
"You see, Brindlebury, it is not only that I am obliged to forgive you, I have to go further. I have to make up to you. For the truth is, Brindlebury, that I want to marry your sister."
"You want to marry Jane-Ellen?"
"More than I can tell you."
"And what does she say?"
"She likes the idea."
"Bless my soul! you are going to be my brother-in-law."
"No rose without its thorn, I understand."
The situation was too tempting15 to the boy's love of a joke. He seated himself on the top of the ice-box and folded his arms.
"I do not know," he said, "that I should be justified16 in giving my consent to any such marriage. Would it tend to make my sister happy? The woman who marries above her social position—the man who marries his cook—is bound to regret it. Have you considered, Mr. Crane, that however you may value my sister yourself, many of your proud friends would not receive her?"
"To my mind, Brindlebury, these social distinctions are very unimportant. Even you I should be willing to have to dinner now and then when we were alone."
"The deuce you would," said Brindlebury, and added, "but suppose my sister's lack of refinement—"
"I can't let you talk like that even in fun, Revelly," said Crane. "Get off your ice-box and let us go back to Claudia."
"Ah, you knew all along?"
"I have suspected for some time. Reed told me this evening."
But when they reached the dining-room, Claudia was not there. She had gone herself to tell her news to her brother Paul. He was sitting alone in the garret with the remnants of the game of Coon-Can before him. Claudia came and put her hand on his shoulder, but he did not move.
"Do you know what I have made up my mind to do?" he said. "I mean to go and make a clean breast of this to Crane. The game is about up, and I don't think he's had a square deal. He's a nice fellow, and I'd like to put myself straight with him."
There was an instant's pause, and then Claudia answered simply:
"I love him, Paul."
Her brother sprang to his feet. "Don't say that even to yourself, my dear," he said. "You don't know what men of his sort are like. Spoilt, run after, cold-blooded. He's not like the men you've ruled over all your life—"
"No, indeed, he's not," said Claudia.
"My dear girl," her brother went on seriously, "this is not like you. You must put this out of your head. After all, that oughtn't to be very hard. You've hardly known the man more than a few days."
"Paul, that shows you don't know what love is. It hasn't anything to do with time, or your own will. It's just there in an instant. People talk as if it were common, as if every one fell in love, but I don't believe they do—not like this. Look at me. I've only known this man as you say a little while, I've only talked to him a few times, and some of those were disagreeable, and yet the idea of spending my life with him not only seems natural, but all the rest of my life—you and my home—seem strange and unfamiliar19. I feel the way you do when you've been living abroad hearing strange languages and suddenly some one speaks to you in your own native tongue. When Burton—"
"Burton?"
"Didn't I tell you we're engaged?"
"My dear Claudia, you must admit we don't really know anything about him."
"You have the rest of your life for finding out, Paul."
They went downstairs presently to supper—a meal that promised to be a good deal more agreeable than dinner had been. For all Paul's expressed doubts, he had every disposition20 to make himself pleasant to his future brother-in-law, and even Lily had felt his charm. Lefferts, the only person in the dark as to the whole situation, served as an excellent audience. All four recounted—together and in turn—the whole story, from the moment when the idea had first occurred to Claudia, at eleven years of age, that she would like to learn to cook, down to the subtlest allusion21 of that evening's dinner-table.
Then suddenly there was a loud peal22 at the front door-bell. Every one knew instantly what it was—Reed returning to make one more effort to save Claudia's reputation.
"Well," said Paul, sinking down in his chair and thrusting his hands still deeper into his pockets, "I shan't let him in. My future depends on my getting over the habit of answering bells."
"Same here," said Brindlebury.
"I certainly shan't open the door for the man," said Crane, "and Claudia shall go only over my dead body."
Again the bell rang.
Lily rose. "I shall let him in," she said, "I think you are all very unjust to Randolph."
Claudia smiled as her sister left the room.
"There," she said, "that's all right. No one has such a good effect on Randolph as Lily has. In fifteen minutes he will be perfectly calm and polite. In half an hour she will have persuaded him he likes things better the way they are."
"I should think," said Lefferts, glancing at Claudia, "that it might take her a little longer than that."
It did take her a little longer.
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1
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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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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wriggled
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等） | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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7
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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9
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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10
harridan
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| n.恶妇；丑老大婆 | |
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11
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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traitorous
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| adj. 叛国的, 不忠的, 背信弃义的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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15
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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16
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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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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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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19
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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20
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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21
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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