Bess passed back in her red cloak between the cedars1 with Mrs. Barbara’s taunts2 still sounding in her ears. She felt benumbed at heart, baffled and very miserable3, not knowing whither to turn for shelter now that Jeffray’s promise could have no fulfilment. Mrs. Gladden’s insolence4 had not hurt her so much as the thought of Richard stricken down so suddenly by this disease. Had but two days passed since he had talked with her in Holy Cross, and gazed with such earnestness upon her face? As she crossed the park Bess looked back wistfully at the great house where Jeffray lay sick of the fever. Her heart waxed very tender towards the man, despite her wounded pride and Mrs. Barbara’s insolence. If only it had been her lot to wait on Jeffray and spend her desire in such sweet service! If he had only fallen sick in Ursula’s cottage and lain there to be nursed by her as she had tended him that night not long ago! She felt desperate enough for her own sake as she thought of Dan. Ursula would have discovered her flight by now, and doubtless the whole hamlet was as wise as Ursula.
Passing under the yews5 and out by the lodge6 gates, she leaned against the park walls to rest and think. She had little money in her pocket, and knew next to nothing of the world. Where should she go, and how should she come by food and shelter? The very thought of returning to Pevensel was an utter abhorrence7 to her soul, and now at Rodenham Priory she could win no welcome. To hide herself from Dan and Isaac, that was her whole desire. She would beg, slave, feed pigs to escape their treachery until Jeffray was recovered of his disease.
Much beset8 by her dreads9 and her dilemmas10, she took the road for Rodenham village after a last look at the priory half hidden amid its trees. She felt tired and hungry, having forgotten to take even a loaf with her in her fever to be gone. Her shoes were dusty, her mouth dry, for she had not drunk since dawn, when she had taken water in her palms from a brook11 that ran through the woods. She would go down to the village to buy food, despite the danger that the boors12 might set Dan on her track if he hunted her by way of Rodenham. Then, with her strength refreshed, she could trudge13 on towards Rookhurst, and perhaps find refuge as a servant in some farm-house.
As Bess was passing the garden gate of the rectory above the church, she saw a fat gentleman in his shirt-sleeves weeding the gravel14 path that wound up to the house. The place looked very peaceful in the morning light, with its tiled gables showing above chestnuts15, yews, and hollies16, and a single trail of smoke ascending17 from one tall chimney-stack. Bess conjectured18 that it was the parsonage, and that the stout20 gentleman was the incumbent21. She knew nothing much of parsons save that they preached on the ten commandments, made wedlock22 honest, and baptized babies. Dr. Sugg’s red face was turned towards her as she stood outside the gate looking wistfully in. The rector had a garden-trug beside him and a hoe in his right hand. He was proud of his flowers and fruit trees, and was more severe on weeds than he was on sinners.
Bess was looking at Dr. Sugg very steadfastly23. Surely the old gentleman had a good-tempered face and a pair of kindly24 eyes that were inclined to twinkle. Why should she not lay the burden of her distress25 before his broad, buckled26 shoes, and, being a man of God, he should be able to advise her. She turned in suddenly at the gate, purposing to try the sincerity27 of the old gentleman’s profession.
“May I speak with you, sir?”
Dr. Sugg stood up with several daisy roots in his hand, and stared at Bess with his shrewd and genial28 eyes. At the first glance, with her black hair and ruddy face, she might have been taken for a gypsy. A closer scrutiny29 suggested a more romantic and interesting vagrant30. The girl was strangely handsome, with a fine carriage and almost the air of a great lady, and Dr. Sugg always had an appreciative31 smile for a comely32 woman.
“Well, Susan, what can I do for you?”
The rector addressed all young women as “Susan,” a fatherly and comprehensive pseudonyme that mingled33 benignity34 with good-humor. Bess’s lips parted in a smile. The old gentleman’s manner pleased her, and she thought he appeared capable of being trusted.
“Are you a parson, sir?”
Dr. Sugg seemed amused by the blunt innocence35 of the question. He threw the daisy roots into the trug, and reached for his coat that was hanging on a neighboring laurel.
“I happen to be the rector of Rodenham, young woman,” he said, studying her with the professional eye.
“Will you give me your advice, sir?”
“My advice is at your service, my dear, for what it is worth.”
Bess had come well within the gate. She stood before the rector, with her black hair peeping out from under the hood36 of her cloak and her eyes fixed37 steadfastly on Dr. Sugg’s face. The rector had never heard a professional beggar ask him for his advice, and there was much in the girl’s manner that pleased him. He had perused38 her lines admiringly, and noticed the beautiful cleanliness of her clothes. It was not often that so tall and fine a girl was to be seen trudging39 the high-road through Rodenham.
“Well, my dear,” he said, with a shrewd smile, “how can I advise you?”
Bess’s eyes were still fixed frankly40 on his face. Their expression convinced the reverend gentleman that this red-mouthed Phœbe was telling the truth.
“My trouble is just this, sir,” she confessed: “My kinsfolk want to bully41 me into marriage against my will, and I ran away from home last night, and came to see Mr. Jeffray yonder, who had promised to be my friend.”
“Mr. Jeffray’s ill with the small-pox,” he said.
“So they told me, sir, at the house. It was a great distress to me.”
Dr. Sugg took snuff, sneezed twice with emphasis, and glanced at Bess with a curious twinkle in his eyes.
“Are you from Pevensel, my dear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“One of the Grimshaws, eh?”
Bess nodded, and watched the stolid44 passage of thought over the rector’s good-natured countenance45.
“And are you the girl, my dear, for whom Mr. Jeffray had his head broken in the woods?”
Bess laughed and colored, her eyes brightening wonderfully.
“Mr. Jeffray saved me from my cousin Dan,” she confessed.
Dr. Sugg shook his head reprovingly, and yet smiled as though he thoroughly46 sympathized with Mr. Richard in the adventure. He had heard of the affair from Jeffray himself. His respect for the young squire47 was solid and sincere. Possibly it was this same affection for his patron and a lively liking48 for this forest wench that persuaded the good-natured old gentleman to interest himself in her behalf.
“So Mr. Jeffray offered to play the protector to you?” he asked.
“He is an honorable gentleman, sir.”
“Egad, you are quite right, my dear. And this would-be husband of yours, you don’t fancy him, eh?”
“I hate him,” she answered, hotly, “for he has tried to play many a coward’s trick by me. It was only the pistols Mr. Jeffray gave me that saved me last night. I want to hide myself, sir, till Mr. Jeffray is recovered.”
Dr. Sugg looked grave and not a little puzzled. The girl’s frank and childish trust in the master of Rodenham was certainly a charming Platonism, but one that might lead to delicate complications. Richard Jeffray might be a generous young gentleman, and a man of honor, but he had hardly arrived at that patriarchal and convincing age when romantic philanthropy becomes disinterested50 in the eyes of the world. Bess Grimshaw’s spirit pleased the old gentleman not a little. He was a born sportsman as well as a Christian51, and was honestly concerned for the girl’s future.
“Two-and-twenty, sir.”
“Can you milk and cook and use your needle?”
Bess smiled and confessed to all these accomplishments53.
“I would serve in a farm-house,” she said, “to get myself an honest home.”
Dr. Sugg appeared to be pondering the matter with all the gravity he could gather. That he was justified54 in abetting55 the girl’s frank spirit of independence he had no doubt at all. Besides, his efforts on her behalf could not fail to please Richard Jeffray should that gentleman recover.
“Listen to me, my dear,” he said, at length. “Farmer Pelham, of Beechhurst, needs a girl. He is an honest fellow, and his wife is a kindly body. Supposing I take my nag19 and see about the place for you?”
Bess looked as though she were ready to embrace Dr. Sugg and his proposal at one and the same moment.
“I should bless the chance, sir,” she said.
“That is spoken like a woman of sense.”
“I don’t mind about the pay, sir.”
Dr. Sugg twinkled and patted the girl’s shoulder.
“You leave it to me, my dear,” he said. “I like your honesty and the way you have trusted me. It is a pleasure to help those who are willing to help themselves. You can make yourself comfortable at the rectory for the day; my daughter Mary will make you welcome. There, give me a kiss, my dear, to show your good feeling.”
And Bess kissed the old gentleman, a display of gratitude56 that might have shocked most grievously the more straitlaced of Dr. Sugg’s parishioners.
Mary Sugg assumed an air of mild and genteel hauteur57 when her father brought Bess into the parlor58 and desired his daughter to exercise his hospitality in the girl’s behalf. Like many plain and pious59 young women, Mary Sugg was inclined to view beauty with suspicion and to make of virtue60 a Madonna of Ugliness. She conceived it to be distinctly indiscreet of her father to introduce a strange girl into the house, especially when Janet and Sarah, the housemaid and the cook, had fled the place because of the small-pox. Mary Sugg atoned61 for her grimness, however, by being the possessor of a kind heart and a sympathetic nature. She made Bess a gracious little courtesy, and looked shyly at the girl, who was gazing round the parlor, with its solid Dutch furniture, its bookshelves, and its prints. A tall clock ticked sententiously beside the door. The chintz-curtained windows looked out upon the lawn and flower-beds, where Dr. Sugg’s daffodils and crocuses were in bloom.
The rector took his daughter apart into the hall, and, after closing the door, told her the whole of Bess’s trouble. Dr. Sugg was a great man when giving voice to his opinions, and his daughter still believed him certain of a bishopric. Perhaps, also, it was Bess’s very virtuous62 disinclination to be married that impressed Miss Mary’s virgin63 heart. Besides, Richard Jeffray had promised the girl help, and poor Mary thought Mr. Richard one of the sweetest fellows in Christendom. Therefore, she kissed her father and declared that she approved heartily64 of his sentiments and his sensibility.
“Why should not the girl stay with us?” she said, of a sudden, her tired eyes brightening. “Now that Janet and Sarah have left us I should like some help, and I do not want to get a woman up from the village.”
“Bless my soul,” he said, “what a clodpoll I am, to be sure. The very thing, my dear. The wench has been clear of the fever, and if she will stay with us there is no need for me to ride to Beechhurst. Go in and talk to her yourself, Mary.”
Miss Sugg’s sallow face had flushed a little.
“To be sure,” she exclaimed, “she looks a very decent young woman, clean and capable. I am surprised, sir—”
“Surprised, Mary?” asked the rector, with an amused twinkle.
“That a girl out of Pevensel should look so neat and respectable.”
“Can any good thing come out of Nazareth, eh?”
“Yes, father.”
“Egad, many good things do originate from Nazareth, my dear—more, I imagine, than from polite Jerusalem.”
Mary Sugg returned to the parlor, and confessed with some shy courtesy to Bess that the rector himself was in need of a servant. Could Bess cook and milk and mend stockings? Bess’s eyes were fixed searchingly on Miss Sugg’s face for the moment as though probing her sincerity. Contrasts that they were, there was a gentleness and an air of quiet sympathy about the parson’s daughter that appealed instinctively66 to the child of the woods. She met Mary’s offer in the spirit that prompted it, and thanked her with a tremulous light in her eyes.
“Madam,” she said, with simple stateliness, holding out her hand and making poor Mary look utterly67 commonplace, “I thank you for your kindness and your trust in me. I will serve you with all my heart.”
There is magic in gratitude, and Mary, blushing shyly, took Bess’s hand and liked the girl unreservedly from that moment.
“My father is a kind man,” she said, a little confusedly; “he is always ready to help those who are in trouble.”
“And I see that you are his daughter, madam.”
It was a quaint69 sight to see Mary Sugg with her awkward little body and her ugly face mothering Bess, who could have carried her in her arms like a child. Bess seemed to become strangely sweet and gentle. Her heart had gone out to this faded, shrivelled little person with the quiet face and the pale, short-sighted eyes. She was soon talking to Mary of her life in Pevensel, and Miss Sugg’s shocked face was a study in pained propriety70 when she heard of Dan’s brutality71. Yet Mary Sugg was a very simple and untainted young woman for all her primness72, and there was a certain inevitable73 ardor74 in Bess’s personality that appealed to good women and to children.
Mary took the girl into the kitchen, brewed75 her some coffee, and saw that she ate an honest meal. Then she showed her the whole house—the attic76 that was to be her bedroom, the press where the clean linen77 was kept, the closet where the pans and brushes were. She gave Bess one of her own aprons79, an old pair of house shoes, and a cap. Bess had much of the practical in her constitution, and, moreover, she was burning to prove her gratitude to her friends. There was to be a leg of mutton for Dr. Sugg’s dinner that day. Bess bared her brown forearms, fastened on her apron78, and blessed old Ursula for having taught her to be useful. Dr. Sugg was delighted with her cooking and with the quiet and graceful80 way she waited at table. Mary, a perfect housewife herself, congratulated her father on their refugee’s success.
“The girl looks quite a lady,” she said. “I must say I am in love with her, though she has only been with us half a day. I trust her terrible kinsfolk will not trouble her here.”
“The authority of this house,” he answered, “is sufficient to awe82 the rascals83. My sympathies are wholly with the girl, my dear, and I shall protect her to the best of my ability.”
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1
cedars
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| 雪松，西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 ) | |
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taunts
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| 嘲弄的言语，嘲笑，奚落( taunt的名词复数 ) | |
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3
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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insolence
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| n.傲慢；无礼；厚颜；傲慢的态度 | |
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yews
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| n.紫杉( yew的名词复数 ) | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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dreads
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| n.恐惧，畏惧( dread的名词复数 )；令人恐惧的事物v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
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dilemmas
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| n.左右为难( dilemma的名词复数 )；窘境，困境 | |
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11
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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boors
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| n.农民( boor的名词复数 )；乡下佬；没礼貌的人；粗野的人 | |
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13
trudge
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| v.步履艰难地走；n.跋涉，费力艰难的步行 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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15
chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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hollies
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| n.冬青（常绿灌木，叶尖而硬，有光泽，冬季结红色浆果）( holly的名词复数 )；（用作圣诞节饰物的）冬青树枝 | |
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17
ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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nag
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| v.(对…)不停地唠叨；n.爱唠叨的人 | |
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21
incumbent
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| adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的 | |
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wedlock
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| n.婚姻，已婚状态 | |
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steadfastly
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| adv.踏实地，不变地；岿然；坚定不渝 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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25
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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buckled
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| a. 有带扣的 | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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vagrant
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| n.流浪者，游民；adj.流浪的，漂泊不定的 | |
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appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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comely
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| adj.漂亮的，合宜的 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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benignity
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| n.仁慈 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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38
perused
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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39
trudging
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| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的现在分词形式） | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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41
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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42
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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44
stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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45
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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46
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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47
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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48
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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49
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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50
disinterested
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| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
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51
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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52
wig
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| n.假发 | |
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53
accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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54
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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55
abetting
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| v.教唆（犯罪）( abet的现在分词 )；煽动；怂恿；支持 | |
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56
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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57
hauteur
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| n.傲慢 | |
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58
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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59
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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60
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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61
atoned
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| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的过去式和过去分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
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62
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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65
thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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66
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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67
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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68
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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69
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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70
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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71
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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72
primness
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| n.循规蹈矩，整洁 | |
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73
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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ardor
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| n.热情，狂热 | |
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75
brewed
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| 调制( brew的过去式和过去分词 )； 酝酿； 沏（茶）； 煮（咖啡） | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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aprons
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| 围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份） | |
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80
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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81
bellicose
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| adj.好战的；好争吵的 | |
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82
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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rascals
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| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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