After this Bettina went about her preparations for departure with a spirit of calm and collectedness which came from the knowledge of herself, which she had at last fully1 accepted. Hundreds of times in these last few days her mother’s words had come back to her: “The day will come when you will know what you are incapable2 even of imagining now—what is the one perfect love and complete union that can ever be between two human beings.... Test the world, if you will—and your nature demands that you shall test it—but you will live to say one day: ‘My mother knew. My mother’s words have come true.’”
It was even so. She knew now, at last, and the knowledge had come to her when inexorable necessity compelled her to separate herself forever from the man who, not suddenly, but by a system of gradual evolution—from the crude emotions of her girlhood through the growing [Pg 172]consciousness of later years—had now manifested himself to her as all her heart could desire, all her spirit could crave3, all her mature womanhood could need. She realized that he had long been this to her, but with a thick veil between herself and him which had hid the truth from her. The reading of the letter given her by Mr. Cortlin had torn that veil apart, and she saw him as he was, the man of her ideal. She did not, at the same moment, see her own heart as it was. This vision had come to her with her renewed intercourse4 with Horace, who had appeared before her now the ripe product of the noble possibilities which she had vaguely5 perceived in him once, when she had cared too little to think deeply of him in any way.
Oh, to have kept the place she had once had at his dear side! To have shared with him the privations of a life that would have been narrow and obscure indeed compared with the one which she had known in its stead, but, oh, how rich in the way she had now come to count riches!
Thoughts like these she had to fight against. Perhaps in the end they would conquer, and would hunt her to the death; but now, until she could get out of the country, she must put them down.
[Pg 173]
She had only a few days left, and she determined6 to devote a part of these to some farewell visits among the tenants7. As far as she had been able to do, she had made friends with these poor folk, and had given what she could to relieve their necessities; but, in comparison with what was needed, the money at her command had seemed pitifully small.
When Lady Hurdly, dressed in her deep widow’s mourning, descended8 the steps of her stately residence and entered the waiting carriage, whose black-liveried servants saluted9 her respectfully, she had a consciousness that servants and tenants alike must feel a certain commiseration10 for the great lady, such as they had known her, now sunk to poverty as well as obscurity. This feeling made her manner a little colder and prouder then usual as she sat alone in the sunshine of a lovely autumn morning and was driven between the beautiful English hedgerows and through the fertile fields which she had learned to love. How soon would all be changed for her! And changed to what? The isolated11 exile of a place filled with the haunting memories of the past—her mother, whom she had lost forever, and her young lover, who was as absolutely lost to her.
[Pg 174]Strangely to herself, it was the latter that she felt to be the keener pain. To the former she was reconciled; as we do, sooner or later, reconcile ourselves to the inevitable12; but the supreme13 sting of this other grief was that she felt it need not have been. Sitting there in her carriage, the object of much eager attention, she felt so desolate14 and wretched that it was with difficulty that she kept back her tears.
She dreaded15 the ordeal16 before her. She felt that she must take leave of these people and say a word of kindness to them, since she was so miserably17 unable to do more; but these visits were always depressing. Since the tenants had discovered that they had a sympathetic listener in her, they had luxuriated in the pouring out of their sorrows. Of course they had not ventured to accuse her husband of being connected with them, but the lesson was one that he who ran might read.
So, when the carriage stopped at the door of the first cottage, she had made up her mind that she could not stand much in the way of these miserable18 confidences to-day, and would make her visits short.
But when she entered the house she was conscious of a total change of atmosphere. Every [Pg 175]creature in the room gave proof of this, according to his or her kind. The old woman who sat knitting by the hearth19 looked up at her with a dim twinkle in the eyes that had heretofore expressed nothing but a consciousness that things were bad and getting worse; and the children, who, indeed, had taken little count of the depression of their elders, now manifestly shared their relief from it. It was their mother who, with a strange smile of hope on her careworn20 face and a fervent21 clasping together of her work-worn hands, made the explanation to the visitor.
But this explanation, when it had been heard, was almost more of an ordeal to Bettina than the one which she had feared. Certainly it made a stronger demand upon her power of self-control. For the key-note of it all was Horace. He had been here before her, and had done, or promised to have done, all that she had so passionately22 wished to do. His name was on their lips continually; even the little children lisped it. It was “his lordship this” and “his lordship that,” in a way that furnished a strange contrast to the studied avoidance of the word under former conditions.
Somehow, glad as she was, it was hard for Bettina to bear. In the midst of the accounts [Pg 176]of what his lordship had done and said, and how he was to right all their wrongs and make everybody happy, she got up and took a hurried leave.
What was the use of her staying here? What was a little sympathetic feeling, more or less, to these wretchedly poor creatures? It was their material needs that they wished satisfied, and a stronger hand than hers was at work on these. And if—as seemed so plain, as she could so well imagine from her own knowledge of him—he was able and willing to give them the sympathy and interest as well as the practical help they needed, where was any use for her? There was none—nobody needed her, she told herself, desperately23, and the sooner she lost herself in the oblivion of America the better.
Each cottage that she visited showed the same metamorphosis in its inmates24. A lame25 boy to whom she had once given a pair of crutches26 had a new wheel-chair, and the crutches were thrown in a corner. A sick child for whom she had bought some prepared food, which it had not been able to take, had been sent off to a hospital for regular treatment, and its poor mother was enjoying the first rest of many years, with a consciousness that the child was better off than it [Pg 177]could possibly be with her. An old man who had been long bedridden, and to whom she had sent some clean bedclothes, had been moved into another room with complete new furnishings, while the occupant of this room had been sent elsewhere, so that the distressing27 sense of over-crowdedness for sick and well was entirely28 gone from the house.
In almost every cottage that she visited she saw the same evidences. How pitiful her own efforts seemed beside these! What was heart compared with hand? What was sympathy compared with money? And was she so sure that she gave even the sympathy? She felt in her breast now no sense of pity for their suffering, no consciousness even of rejoicing in their relief. The only feeling there—and it seemed to fill her whole heart—was pity for her own numb29, gnawing30 wretchedness, for which there could be no relief.
When the last hurried visit was ended, she drove home, completely unnerved. Her black veil was lowered before her face, and though she sat erect31 and composed to outward seeming, the tears rained down her cheeks.
Her remaining days at Kingdon Hall were spent in a state of such listlessness and inertia32 that Nora began to fear that she was going to be ill. [Pg 178]She urged her mistress to send for the doctor; but, for answer, Bettina burst into tears, declaring that she was not ill, and begging Nora to do everything for her that was necessary to get her off on the steamer on which she had taken passage, as she felt unable to do anything herself.
How the intervening hours passed she never knew; but, as if taking part in a dream, she went through them all, and at last found herself settled in her state-room, with Nora to take care of her, and no one to spy on her or notice what she did. Asking Nora, as piteously as a child, to help her to undress, she went to bed, and from that bed she did not rise until the ship had touched another shore, and the breadth of the world lay between herself and Horace.
How glad she would have been to lie there and sail on forever, freed from her responsibility to the future, as she was from that to the past!
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1
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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crave
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| vt.渴望得到，迫切需要，恳求，请求 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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6
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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7
tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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8
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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9
saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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10
commiseration
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| n.怜悯，同情 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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13
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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14
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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15
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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careworn
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| adj.疲倦的，饱经忧患的 | |
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fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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crutches
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| n.拐杖, 支柱 v.支撑 | |
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27
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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28
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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31
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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32
inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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