When she reached Vale Royal, which she did late that night, after a dreary1 and dangerous drive of fourteen miles, at a walking pace, over frozen roads, she told her parents of the detention2 of the train by the snow-drift, but she did not tell them of her meeting with Lady Kenilworth’s brother.
She was tired and chilled, and went at once to a hot bath and her bed, whither her mother brought her a cup of boiling milk with two spoonsful of Cognac in it.
“It ought by rights to be milked on to the brandy,” said that good lady. “But that can’t be done here, though there are half a score of beautiful Alderneys standing3 on the Home farm only just to supply the house—and such a dairy, my dear! Chiny the walls is, and marble the floors. Only I don’t hold with their method of churning, and the wenches are much too fine. I showed ’em how to turn out butter one day, and I heard ’em say as I come away that my proper place was the kitchen! Well, good-night, my dearie; sleep well.”
“Good-night, dear mother,” said Katherine with unusual tenderness, for she was not demonstrative, and her parents to her were almost strangers.
“It is not her fault,” she thought, “if we are upstarts and interlopers in this place which Henry the Second gave the Roxhalls.”
Then her great fatigue5 conquered her and, the brandied milk aiding, she fell sound asleep and slept dreamlessly until the chimes of the clock tower sounded eleven in the still, sunny, frosty, noonday air.
Then she awoke with the sense of something odiously6 painful having happened, and, as she saw the withered7 bouquet8 of violets, which she had told her maid to leave, with her gloves and her muff on a table near, she remembered, and the words of Hurstmanceaux came back on her mind with poignant9 mortification10 in their memories.
[161]“How right he was! Oh, how right he was! But how merciless!” she thought, as she looked through the panes11 of the oriel window of her chamber12 out on to the white and silent park. She saw the huge old oaks, the grand old views, the distant mere13 frozen over, the deer crossing the snow in the distance to be fed. The bells of a church unseen were chiming musically. In the ivy14 beneath her windows two robins15 were singing in friendly rivalry16. Above-head was a pale soft sky of faintest blue. In the air there was frost. It was all charming, homelike, stately, simple; it would have delighted her if—if—if—there was so many “ifs” she felt sick and weary at the mere thought of them, and the innocent tranquillity17 of the scene jarred on all her nerves with pain.
It was late in the morning before she could summon strength to go downstairs, where she found her mother lunching alone in the Tudor dining-hall; her father had gone away early in a sledge18 to attend political meetings in an adjacent county, and the large house-party invited was not due for two weeks.
“Who are coming, mother?” she asked.
“Oh, my dear, I never know; I scarce know who they are when I see ’em,” replied the present mistress of Vale Royal. “Lady Kenilworth has arranged it all. She brings her friends.”
Katherine colored at the name.
“As she would go to the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo, or the Sanatorium at Hot Springs!” she said bitterly.
“Well, I don’t know about that. She’d have to pay for ’em in those places,” said Mrs. Massarene seriously, not intending any sarcasm19.
“Don’t you eat nothing, my dear?” asked her mother anxiously. “I can’t say as India have made you fat, Kathleen.”
She smiled involuntarily.
“Surely you do not wish me to be fat, mother?”
“Well, no, not exactly. But I’d like to see you enjoy your food.”
“Did she go through the form of showing you her list?”
“No, my dear, she didn’t. Your father knows who is coming. I did say to her as how I wished she’d bring her[162] children—they are such little ducks—but she gave a little scoffing20 laugh and didn’t even reply.”
“How can you tolerate her! You should turn her out of the house!”
“Oh, my dear Kathleen,” said Mrs. Massarene in an awed22 tone. “We’ve owed everything to her. If it hadn’t been for her I believe we shouldn’t have known a soul worth speaking of to this day. That old Khris (though he’s a real prince) is somehow down on his luck and can’t get anybody anywhere. You’ve made fine friends, to be sure, but they didn’t cotton to us; and your Lady Mary—whom you’ve just come from—they say, isn’t what she should be.”
“Is Lady Kenilworth?”
“Lord, she must be, my dear! Why she comes on here from Sandringham! She’s at the very tiptop of the tree. She stays at Windsor and she sits next the Queen at the Braemar gathering23. What more could you have? And though she does bite my nose off and treat me like dirt I can’t help being took by her; there’s something about her carries you off your feet like; I don’t know what to call it.”
“Fascination.”
“Well, yes; I suppose you’d say so. It’s a kind of power in her, and grace and beauty and cruelty all mixed up in her, as ’tis in a pretty young cat. Your father’s that wrapped up in her he sits staring like an owl24 when she’s in the room, and I believe if she told him to hop25 on one leg round the Houses of Parliament he’d do it to please her.”
“Does he not see how ridiculous she makes him?”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Massarene with solemnity, “a man never thinks he is ridiculous. He says to himself, ‘I’m a man,’ and he gets a queer sort of comfort out of that as a baby does out of sucking its thumb.”
Katherine smiled absently.
“Does Lady Kenilworth ever speak of her brother—her eldest26 brother, Lord Hurstmanceaux?” she said in an embarrassed tone, which her mother did not observe.
“Yes; she says he’s a bear. She’s brought her brothers-in-law, and a good many of her relations, her ‘people,’ as she calls ’em, but her own brothers, none of ’em, ever.”
“This place belonged to her cousin.”
[163]“Did it? I never knew anything about it. William came in one day and said: ‘I’ve bought a place in the shires. Go down there this afternoon.’ That was all. I was struck all of a heap when I saw it. And the housekeeper27, who had stayed on to go over the inventory28, drew herself up when she met me, stiff as stiff, and said to me, ‘I shall be glad if you will release me of my charge, madam. I have always lived with gentlefolks.’ Those were her very words, Kathleen. A fine set-up, glum-looking woman she was, dressed in black watered silk, and she went off the next morning, though we had offered her double her price to remain under us. That’s just, you know, what Gregson, the courier, said once; or rather, he said he wouldn’t live with gentlefolks because they was always out o’ pocket.”
Katherine moved restlessly: words rose to her lips which she repressed.
“And when I go in the village,” continued her mother, “there’s nothing but black looks and shut doors, and the very geese on the little common screech29 at me. The rector’s civil, of course, because he’s an eye to the main chance, but he’s the only one; and I’m afeard it’s mostly because he wants your father to give him a peal30 of bells. They seem to think your father should pay the National Debt!”
Katherine sighed.
“Poor mother! Que de couleuvres on vous fait avaler!”
“Don’t talk French, Kathleen, I can’t abide31 it,” said Mrs. Massarene with unusual acerbity32. “When we first set foot in Kerosene33 City, a few planks34 on the mud as ’twas then, a little nasty Frenchman had an eating shop next ours and he undersold me in everything, and made dishes out of nothing, and such pastry—light as love! My best was lead beside it.”
She continued to recall the culinary feats35 of her Gallic rival, whose superiority had filled her with a Gallophobia deathless and pitiless as that of Francesco Crispi; and her daughter’s thoughts wandered away from her to the low-lying white fields round Greater Thrope, and to the remembrance of the dark blue eyes which had met her own so frankly36 through the misty37 air.
[164]“Would you mind very much, mother,” she said at length, “if I did not appear while these people are here? I could go to Lady Mary’s or to Brighton.”
Mrs. Massarene was startled and alarmed.
“Oh, my dearie, no! Not on any account. Your father would never forgive it. You have been so much away; it has angered him so. And as for your views and your reasons he’d never see them, my dear, no more than a blind man can see a church clock. Pray don’t dream of it, child. People say it is so odd you went to India. They will think you have some skin-disease, or are light in your head, unless you are seen now at home.”
Katherine sighed again.
“I think you do not understand,” she said in a low, grave voice. “I utterly38 disapprove39, I utterly abhor40, the course which my father takes. I think his objects contemptible41 and his means to attain42 them loathsome43. If you only knew what they look to persons of breeding and honor! Society laughs at him whilst it uses him and rules him. He is not a gentleman. He never will be one. A complacent44 premier45 may get him a knightage, a baronetage, a peerage; and a sovereign as complacent may let him kiss her hand. But nothing of that will make him a gentleman. He will never be one if he lived to be a hundred or if he live to entertain emperors. I cannot alter his actions. I cannot open his eyes. I have perhaps no right to speak thus of him. But I cannot help it. I despise the whole miserable46 ignominious47 farce48. I cannot bear to be forced to remain a spectator of it. This place is Lord Roxhall’s. All the money in the world cannot make it ours. We are aliens and intruders. All the people whom Lady Kenilworth will bring here next week will go away to ridicule49 us, plebeians50 as we are masquerading in fine clothes and ancient houses.”
“My dear! my dear!” cried her mother in great trepidation51. “You make me all in a cold tremble to hear you. All you say is gospel truth, and I’ve felt it many a time, or like to it, myself. But it is no manner of use to say it. Your father thinks he’s a great man, and nobody’ll put him out of conceit52 of himself; it’s true that as he made his pile he’s the right to the spending of it.[165] Don’t you talk of going away, Kathleen. You are the only creature I have to look to, for I know full well that I’m only a stone in your father’s path and a thorn in his flesh. I can’t kill myself to pleasure him, for ’twould be fire everlasting53, but I know I’m no use to him now. I was of use on the other side, and he knew it then, though I can’t call to mind one grateful word as ever he said to me; but he knew it, and wouldn’t have got along as fast as he did without me; and nobody kept ledgers54 better than me, nor scrubbed a kitchen table whiter. That’s neither here nor there now, however; and I’m in his way now with fine folks; and look like ’em I never shall. But you, my dear, you do look like ’em, and talk like ’em, and carry yourself like ’em. I would call you like an empress, only I saw an empress once, and she was a little old hodmedod of a woman in a Shetland shawl, and she was cheapening shells on the beach at Blankenberge; and you are grand and stately, and fine as a lily on its stalk. I want them to see what you look like, my dear; and they won’t laugh at you, that’s certain. As for the house, it’s been paid for, so I don’t see how you can say it’s Lord Roxhall’s still. He can’t eat his cake and have it.
“And my dear Kathleen,” she continued, changing the subject with great agitation55, “they say you mustn’t know Lady Mary; she, she, she isn’t respectable. There is something about her boy’s tutor and about a painter, a house painter, even, they say.”
Katherine Massarene colored. “Dear mother, I know Lady Mary is not all she might be. She is light and foolish. But when you sent me to that Brighton school, a little frightened, stupid, miserable child, who could not even speak grammatically, Lady Mary noticed me when she came to see Enid and May (her own daughters), and told them to be kind to me, and asked me to spend the holidays with them; and they were kind, most kind, and never laughed at me, and took pains to tell me how to behave and how to speak; and I assure you, my dear mother, that Lady Mary might be the worst woman under the sun I should never admit it, and I should always be grateful to her for her goodness to me when I was friendless[166] and common and ridiculous—a little vulgar chit who called you ‘Ma.’”
“I am sure you were a well-brought-up child from your cradle, and pretty-behaved if ever there were one,” she said with offence. “And I dare say she knew as how your father’d made his pile, and had an eye on it.”
“Oh no, oh no,” said Katherine with warmth and scorn. “Lady Mary is not like that, nor any of her people; they are generous and careless, and never calculate; they are not like your Kenilworths and Karsteins. She is a very thoroughbred woman, and to her novi homines are novi homines, however gilded57 may be their stucco pedestals.”
Happily the phrase was incomprehensible to her hearer, who merely replied obstinately59: “Well, they tell me she’s ill spoke60 of, and I can’t have you mixed up with any as is; but if she was kind to you, my dear, and I mind me well you always wrote about her as being such, I’ll do anything to help her in reason. You know, my dear,” she added, lowering her voice, for the utterance61 was treasonable, “I have found out as how all them great folks are all hollow inside, as one may say. They live uncommon62 smart, and whisk about all the year round, but they’re all of ’em in Queer Street, living by their wits, as one may say; now I be bound your Lady Mary is so too, because she’s a duke’s daughter, and her husband came into the country with King Canute, him as washed his feet in the sea—at least the book says so—and anything she’d like done in the way of money I’d be delighted to do, since she was good to you——”
“Oh, my dear mother,” cried Katherine, half amused and half incensed63, “pray put that sort of thing out of your mind altogether. Lady Mary has everything she wants, and if she had not she would die sooner than say so. And indeed they are quite rich. Not what my father would call so probably, but enough so for a county family which dates, as you rightly observe, from Knutt.”
[167]“Di’monds then?” she said tentatively. “None of them ever have enough di’monds. One might send her a standup thing for her head in di’monds—tira I think they call it; and say as how we are most grateful all of us, but you can’t be intimate because virtue64’s more than rank.”
Katherine rose with strong effort controlling the deep anger and the irresistible65 laughter which moved her.
“We will talk of these things another time, dear,” she said after a moment. “Lady Mary will not be in London this season after Whitsuntide. Enid and May go out this year with their grandmother, Lady Chillingham.”
“That’s just what she said,” cried her mother in triumph. “She said Lady Mary couldn’t show her nose at Court even to present her own girls!”
“Who said so?”
“Lady Kenilworth.”
“Lady Kenilworth a purist! I fear she could give my poor Lady Mary a good many points——”
“What do you mean? Lady Kenilworth knows the world.”
“That no one doubts. And I dare say she would take the tiara, my dear mother.”
“I don’t understand you, and you have a very rude way of speaking.”
“Forgive me, dear!” said her daughter with grace and penitence66. “I do not like your guide, philosopher and friend, though she is one of the prettiest women I ever saw in my life.”
“Well, you can’t say she doesn’t go to Court,” cried Mrs. Massarene in triumph.
“I am quite sure she will go to Court all her life,” replied Katherine Massarene—an answer on which her mother pondered darkly in silence. It must be meant for praise, it could not be meant for blame; and yet there was a tone in the speaker’s voice, a way of saying this apparently67 acquiescent68 and complimentary69 phrase, which troubled its hearer.
“Her answer’s for all the world like a pail of fine milk spoilt by the cow having ate garlic,” thought Mrs. Massarene, her mind reverting70 to happy homely71 days in the[168] dairy and the pastures with Blossom and Bee and Buttercup, where Courts were realms unknown.
Katherine was silent.
She felt the absolute impossibility of inducing her mother to make any stand against the way of life which to herself was so abhorrent72; or even to make her comprehend the suffering it was to her finer and more sensitive nature. Her mother disliked the life because it worried her and made her feel foolish and incapable73, but she could not reach any conception of the torture and degradation74 which it appeared to Katherine. If she had possessed75 any power, any influence, if she had been able to return in kind the insolence76 she winced77 under, and the patronage78 she so bitterly resented, things would have seemed different to her; but she could do nothing, she could only remain the passive though indignant spectator of what she abhorred79.
To her the position was false, contemptible, infamous80, everything which Hurstmanceaux had called it; and she was compelled to appear a voluntary sharer in and accessory to it. The house, beautiful, ancient, interesting as it was, seemed to her only a hateful prison—a prison in which she was every day set in a pillory81.
All the underlings of the gardens, the stables, the Home farm, the preserves, showed the contempt which they felt for these unwelcome successors of the Roxhall family.
“One would think one had not paid a single penny for the place,” said Mrs. Massarene, who, when she asked the head gardener at what rate he sold his fresias, was met by the curt82 reply, “We don’t sell no flowers here, mum. Lord Roxhall never allowed it.”
“But, my good man,” said his present mistress, “Lord Roxhall’s gone for ever and aye; he’s naught83 to do with the place any more, and to keep all these miles of glass without making a profit out of them is a thing I couldn’t hold with anyhow. Nobody’s so much money that they can afford waste, Mr. Simpson; and what we don’t want ourselves must be sold.”
“That must be as you choose, mum,” said the head gardener doggedly84. “You’ll suit yourself and I’ll suit[169] myself. I’ve lived with gentlefolk and I hain’t lived with traders.”
At the same moment Mr. Winter, who had of course brought down his household, was saying to the head keeper:
“Yes, it does turn one’s stomach to stay with these shoeblacks. It’s the social democracy, that’s what it is. But the old families they’re all run to seed like your Roxhall’s; they expect one to put up with double-bedded rooms and African sherrys. I am one as always stands up for the aristocracy, but their cellars aren’t what they were nor their tables neither. That’s why they’re always dining theirselves with the sweeps and the shoeblacks.”
In happy ignorance that his groom85 of the chambers86 was describing him as a sweep and a shoeblack, William Massarene, with a marquis, a bishop87, and a lord-lieutenant awaiting him, was driving to address a political meeting in the chief town of South Woldshire.
When he got up on his dog-cart, correctly attired88 in the garb89 and the gaiters of a squire90 of high degree, and drove over to quarter sessions, he felt as if he had been a justice of the peace and the master of Vale Royal all his life. He really handled horses very well; his driving was somewhat too flashy and reckless for English taste, but the animal had never been foaled which he would not have been able to break in; he who had ridden bronchos barebacked, and raced blue grass trotters, and this power stood him in good stead in such a horsy county as Woldshire.
The snow was gone and the weather was open. There was the prospect91 of political changes in the air, and, in the event of a general election, his chiefs of party desired that he should represent his county instead of continuing member for that unsound and uncertain metropolitan92 division, which he did actually represent. To feel the way and introduce him politically in the borough93 before there should be any question of his being put up for it, those who were interested in the matter had got up a gathering of county notabilities on a foreign question of the moment, which was supposed, as all foreign questions always are, to involve the entire existence of England.[170] He had been told what to say on these questions, and although it seemed to him “awful rot,” like everything inculcated by his leaders, he said it obediently, and refreshed himself afterwards by some personal statements. Amongst men, on public matters he always showed to advantage. He was common, ignorant, absurd, very often; but he was a man, a man who could hold his own and had a head on his shoulders. That mastery of fate which had made him what he was gave meaning to his dull features, and light to his dull eyes. No one, as modern existence is constituted, could separate him altogether from the weight of his ruthless will, and the greatness of his accomplished94 purpose; he stood on a solid basis of acquired gold. Before a fine lady he shook in his shoes, and before a prince he trembled; but at a mass-meeting he was still the terrible, the formidable, the indomitable, “bull-dozing boss” of Kerosene City. His stout95 hands gripped the rail in front of him, while their veins96 stood out like cords, and his rough rasping voice made its way through the wintry air of England, as it had done through a blizzard97 on the plains of the West.
“I’ve been a workingman myself, gentlemen,” he said, amidst vociferous98 cheers, “and if I’m a rich man to-day it’s been by my own hand and my own head as I’ve become so. I’ve come home to die” (a voice in the crowd: “You’ll live a hundred years!”), “but before I die I want to do what good I can to my country and my fellow-countrymen.” (Vociferous cheers.) “Blood’s thicker than water, gentlemen——”
The applause here was so deafening99 that he was forced to pause; this phrase never fails to raise a tempest of admiration100, probably because no one can ever possibly say what it is intended to mean.
“I know the institutions of my country, gentlemen,” he continued, “and I am proud to take my humble101 share in holding them steady through stormy weather. I have lived for over thirty years, gentlemen, in a land where the institutions are republican, and I wish to speak of that great republic with the sincere respect I feel. But a republican form of government would be wholly unfitted for Great Britain.”
[171]“Why so?” asked a voice in the crowd.
Mr. Massarene did not feel called on to answer so indiscreet a question; he continued as though no one had spoken.
“The foundations of her greatness lie embedded102 in the past, and are inseparably allied103 with her institutions. The courage, honor and patriotism104 of her nobility” (the marquis with a gratified expression played with his watch-chain), “the devotion, purity, and self-sacrifice of her church” (the prelate patted the black silk band on his stomach and purred gently like a cat), “the examples of high virtue and wisdom which have adorned105 her throne” (the lord-lieutenant looked ecstatic and adoring, as a pilgrim of Lourdes before the shrine)—“all these, gentlemen, have made her what she is, the idol106 of her sons, the terror of her foes107, the bulwark108 at once of religious faith and of religious freedom. The great glory of our country, sirs, is that poor and rich are equal before the law” (“Yah!” from a rude man below), “and that the roughest, most friendless lad may by probity109 and industry reach her highest honors. I myself left Queenstown, gentlemen, a young fellow with three pounds in my pocket and a change of clothes in a bundle, and that I have the honor of addressing you here to-day is due to the fact that I toiled110 honestly from morning till night for more than thirty years in exile. It was the hope of coming back, sirs, and settling on my native soil, which kept the heart up in me through hunger and thirst, and heat and cold, and such toil111 as here you know nothing about. I was a poor working lad, gentlemen, with three pounds in my pocket, and yet here I stand to-day the equal of prince and peer” (the marquis frowned, the bishop fidgetted, the lord-lieutenant coughed, but Mr. Massarene was emballé, and heeded112 not these hints of disapprobation). “What do you want with republican institutions, my friends, when under a monarchy113 the doors of wealth and honor open wide to the laboring114 man who has had sense and self-denial enough to work his way upward?” (“They open to a golden key, damn your jaw115!” cried a vulgar being in the mob below.) “who by honesty and economy, and incessant116 toil, has come to put his legs under the same mahogany[172] with the highest of the land. You talk of golden keys, sir—the only key to success is the key of character. Before I give my hand, sir, whether to prince or pauper117, I ask—what is his character?”
“Damned inconvenient,” murmured the marquis with a chuckle120. The bishop folded his hands and looked rapt and pious121. But the mayor of the borough, with desperation, plucked at the orator’s coat-tails.
“Order, order,” he murmured with a clever adaptation of parliamentary procedure; and Mr. Massarene, whose ear was quick, and who was proud of his knowledge of the by-words of the benches, understood that he was irrelevant and on ticklish122 grounds, and brought forward a racy American anecdote123 with ready presence of mind and extreme success; whilst the crowd below roared with loud and delighted laughter. The gentlemen at his elbow breathed again. There had been, in a ducal house of the countryside, a very grave scandal a few months earlier; a scandal which had become town-talk, and even been dragged into the law courts. It would never do to have the yokels124 told their “character” was a patrician125 or political sine qua non.
On the whole the speech was a very popular one; the new owner of Vale Royal was welcomed. Too egotistic in places, and too unpolished in others, it was vigorous, strong, and appealed forcibly to the mob by its picture of a herdsman with three pounds in his pocket become a capitalist and a patron of princes.
To his own immediate126 and aristocratic supporters its effect was less inspiriting. He gave them distinctly to understand the quid pro4 quo which he gave and expected.
“If he don’t get what he wants from our side he’ll rat as sure as he lives,” thought the lord-lieutenant; and the mayor thought to himself that it would really have been better to have left the metropolitan division its member ungrudged.
“What a fearful person,” said the lord-lieutenant, a tall slender man with fair hair turning grey, and a patrician face, blank and dreary in expression, though many[173] years of conflict between a great name and a narrow income.
“His speech was quite Radical127. I really did not know how to sit still and hear it,” whispered the bishop in a tone of awe21 and horror.
The marquis lighted a cigar. “Never mind that. It took with the yokels. He’ll vote straight for us. He wants a peerage.”
“Gladstone would give him a peerage.”
“Of course. But Gladstone’s peerages are like Gladstone claret—unpleasantly cheap. Besides, our man loves smart folks—the liberals are dowdy128; our man loves ‘proputty,’ like the northern farmer, and the liberals are always nibbling129 into it like mice into cheese. Besides, Mouse Kenilworth’s godmother to this beast; she has put him in the way he should go.”
“I wish she would write his speeches for him,” said the bishop.
“Took with the yokels, took with the yokels,” repeated the marquis. “Ain’t that what speeches are made for? People who can read don’t want to be bawled130 at. Man will do very well, and we shall have him in the Lords; he’ll call himself Lord Vale Royal, I suppose—ha! ha!—poor Roxhall!”
The lord-lieutenant, who could not accept the social earthquake with the serenity131 of his friend, shivered, and went to his carriage.
“I shall go and ask our candidate for some money,” murmured the bishop, whose carriage was not quite ready.
The marquis grinned. “Nothing like a cleric for thinking of the main chance!” he said to himself.
The bishop hesitated a few moments, looked up at the steps of the hotel, and hastened across the market-place as rapidly as his portly paunch and tight ecclesiastical shoes permitted. Mr. Massarene was standing on the top of the step with three of his supporters. The churchman took from his pocket a roll of thick vellum-like paper, evidently a memorial or a subscription-list.
“For the rood-screen,” he murmured. “A transcendent work of art. And the restoration of the chauntry. Dear[174] Mr. Massarene, with your admirable principles, I am sure we may count on your support?”
William Massarene, with his gold pencil case between his thick finger and thumb, added his name to the list on the vellum-like scroll132.
The lord-lieutenant was on that list for twenty guineas; Lord Roxhall for ten guineas. William Massarene wrote himself down for two hundred guineas.
“Back the Church for never forgetting to do business,” said the marquis with a chuckle to himself; and he too mounted the hotel steps as his ecclesiastical friend descended133 them, after warmly and blandly134 pressing the candidate’s hand and inviting135 him to dinner at the episcopal palace.
“Booking a front seat in heaven, Mr. Massarene?” he cried out in his good-humored contemptuous voice. “Well, come, do something for earth too. You haven’t subscribed136 to the Thorpe Valley Hounds. Got to do it, you know. Hope you’re sound about Pug.”
The marquis had been master of the pack for a dozen years.
“I’m no sportsman,” said his victim, who had no notion who or what Pug was. “But if it’s the custom in the county——”
“Of course it’s the custom of the county! Roxhall, poor fellow, was a staunch friend to us. You mustn’t be otherwise. We’ll draw Vale Royal coverts137 for cubs138 next October. Mind you’re sound about Pug.”
“May I ask what Lord Roxhall subscribed?”
“Fifty guineas,” said the M. F. H. truthfully.
Mr. Massarene planted his legs a little further apart and thrust out his stomach.
“The dogs!” ejaculated the marquis; but he restrained his emotions and grasped his new subscriber’s hand cordially.
“The Kennels140 and the Cathedral got the same measure,” he thought with amusement, as he nodded good-humoredly to the crowd below and entered the hotel to get a nip of something warm.
[175]“Deuced clever of the Bishop; I shouldn’t have thought of making the cad ‘part.’ What an eye the saints always have on the money-bags,” he thought as he drank some rum-punch.
But, being a cheery person who took the world as he found it, he said to his wife when he got home that day: “Go and call at Vale Royal, Anne; the man’s a very good fellow. No nonsense about his origin. Told us all he began life with three pounds in his pocket. Don’t like going to see ’em in Roxhall’s place? Oh, Lord, my dear, that’s sentiment. If Roxhall hadn’t sold the place they couldn’t have bought it, could they?”
“But why should we know them?” said the lady, who was unwilling141 to accord her countenance142 to new people.
“Because he’s promised two hundred guineas to the ‘dogs,’” said the marquis with a chuckle, “and because he’s a pillar of the Tory Democracy, my dear!”
“Tory Democracy? A contradiction in terms!” said the lady. “You might as well say Angelic Anarchy143!”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
dreary
|
|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
detention
|
|
| n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
pro
|
|
| n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
fatigue
|
|
| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
odiously
|
|
| Odiously | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
withered
|
|
| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
bouquet
|
|
| n.花束，酒香 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
poignant
|
|
| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
mortification
|
|
| n.耻辱，屈辱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
panes
|
|
| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
chamber
|
|
| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
ivy
|
|
| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
robins
|
|
| n.知更鸟，鸫( robin的名词复数 )；（签名者不分先后，以避免受责的）圆形签名抗议书（或请愿书） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
rivalry
|
|
| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
tranquillity
|
|
| n. 平静, 安静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
sledge
|
|
| n.雪橇，大锤；v.用雪橇搬运，坐雪橇往 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
sarcasm
|
|
| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
scoffing
|
|
| n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
awe
|
|
| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
awed
|
|
| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
gathering
|
|
| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
owl
|
|
| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
hop
|
|
| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
eldest
|
|
| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
housekeeper
|
|
| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
inventory
|
|
| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
screech
|
|
| n./v.尖叫；(发出)刺耳的声音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
peal
|
|
| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
abide
|
|
| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
acerbity
|
|
| n.涩，酸，刻薄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
kerosene
|
|
| n.(kerosine)煤油，火油 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
planks
|
|
| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
feats
|
|
| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
misty
|
|
| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
disapprove
|
|
| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
abhor
|
|
| v.憎恶；痛恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
contemptible
|
|
| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
attain
|
|
| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
loathsome
|
|
| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
complacent
|
|
| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
premier
|
|
| adj.首要的；n.总理，首相 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
miserable
|
|
| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
ignominious
|
|
| adj.可鄙的，不光彩的，耻辱的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
farce
|
|
| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
ridicule
|
|
| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
plebeians
|
|
| n.平民( plebeian的名词复数 )；庶民；平民百姓；平庸粗俗的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
51
trepidation
|
|
| n.惊恐，惶恐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
conceit
|
|
| n.自负，自高自大 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
everlasting
|
|
| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
ledgers
|
|
| n.分类账( ledger的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
agitation
|
|
| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
wrath
|
|
| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
gilded
|
|
| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
obstinate
|
|
| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
obstinately
|
|
| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
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： |
|
|
|
|
61
utterance
|
|
| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
uncommon
|
|
| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
incensed
|
|
| 盛怒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
irresistible
|
|
| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
penitence
|
|
| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
acquiescent
|
|
| adj.默许的，默认的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
complimentary
|
|
| adj.赠送的，免费的，赞美的，恭维的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
reverting
|
|
| 恢复( revert的现在分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
homely
|
|
| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
abhorrent
|
|
| adj.可恶的，可恨的，讨厌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
incapable
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
degradation
|
|
| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
insolence
|
|
| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
winced
|
|
| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
patronage
|
|
| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
abhorred
|
|
| v.憎恶( abhor的过去式和过去分词 )；（厌恶地）回避；拒绝；淘汰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
infamous
|
|
| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
pillory
|
|
| n.嘲弄；v.使受公众嘲笑；将…示众 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
curt
|
|
| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
naught
|
|
| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
doggedly
|
|
| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
groom
|
|
| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
chambers
|
|
| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
bishop
|
|
| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
attired
|
|
| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
garb
|
|
| n.服装，装束 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
squire
|
|
| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
prospect
|
|
| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
metropolitan
|
|
| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
borough
|
|
| n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
accomplished
|
|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
veins
|
|
| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
blizzard
|
|
| n.暴风雪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
vociferous
|
|
| adj.喧哗的，大叫大嚷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
deafening
|
|
| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
embedded
|
|
| a.扎牢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
allied
|
|
| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
patriotism
|
|
| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
adorned
|
|
| [计]被修饰的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
idol
|
|
| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
foes
|
|
| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
bulwark
|
|
| n.堡垒，保障，防御 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
probity
|
|
| n.刚直；廉洁，正直 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
toiled
|
|
| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
toil
|
|
| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
heeded
|
|
| v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的过去式和过去分词 )；变平，使（某物）变平( flatten的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
monarchy
|
|
| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
laboring
|
|
| n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
jaw
|
|
| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
incessant
|
|
| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
pauper
|
|
| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
irrelevant
|
|
| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
distressed
|
|
| 痛苦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
chuckle
|
|
| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
pious
|
|
| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
ticklish
|
|
| adj.怕痒的；问题棘手的；adv.怕痒地；n.怕痒，小心处理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
anecdote
|
|
| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
yokels
|
|
| n.乡下佬，土包子( yokel的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
patrician
|
|
| adj.贵族的，显贵的；n.贵族；有教养的人；罗马帝国的地方官 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
radical
|
|
| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
dowdy
|
|
| adj.不整洁的；过旧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
nibbling
|
|
| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的现在分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
bawled
|
|
| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的过去式和过去分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
serenity
|
|
| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
scroll
|
|
| n.卷轴，纸卷；(石刻上的)漩涡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
blandly
|
|
| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
inviting
|
|
| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
subscribed
|
|
| v.捐助( subscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；签署，题词；订阅；同意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
coverts
|
|
| n.隐蔽的，不公开的，秘密的( covert的名词复数 )；复羽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
cubs
|
|
| n.幼小的兽，不懂规矩的年轻人( cub的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
grandeur
|
|
| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
kennels
|
|
| n.主人外出时的小动物寄养处，养狗场；狗窝( kennel的名词复数 )；养狗场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
unwilling
|
|
| adj.不情愿的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
countenance
|
|
| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
anarchy
|
|
| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
spouse
|
|
| n.配偶(指夫或妻) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |