Richard Jeffray’s recovery from the small-pox was hailed by the tenants1 of the Rodenham estate as nothing less than a public blessing2. The farmers were astute3 enough to know when they had a generous “booby” for a landlord, a man who could easily be cheated, and who was ready to listen to their grievances4 instead of sensibly grinding the gold out of their tough and materialistic5 hearts. Hence they listened with unction to Dr. Sugg’s thanksgiving sermon, and thanked Providence6 when they realized that there would be no raising of their rents.
Even the Lady Letitia experienced a comfortable sensation when she read the good news in a letter from Dr. Sugg, or, rather, when Parsons read it to her at a distance of three paces, lest there should be any infection in the sheet. Jeffray was an amiable7 relative who might oblige her delicately on occasions. As for the Hardacre folk, their sympathies were centred for the moment in their own family, for Jilian was abed with the small-pox, and Sir Peter and Mr. Lot were much agitated8 in their minds as to how her precious complexion9 would withstand the ravages10 of the disease.
There were flowers on the broad window-seat of Jeffray’s bedroom window, flowers that should have testified to some gentle and soft-eyed presence in the house. Who was it that had set those gorgeous king-cups in that bowl of blue, filled those tall vases with wild hyacinths, and ranged the tulips red and white in pots along the window-ledge? No woman’s hand had done the deed. Blunt Dick Wilson was the culprit on this occasion. Wilson, whose creased11 and cynical12 face had come back through Rodenham, tanned by the sea-wind and the sun upon the downs. Peter Gladden had shown no reluctance13 to delegate many of his duties to his master’s friend, and the painter had put aside his brushes and busied himself with phials and feeding-cups, spoons and red flannel14, warming-pans and iced-wine.
One May morning Richard sat at his open window, looking over the park towards Rodenham village and the purple slopes of Pevensel. There had been no Maying in the village that month, and the blackthorn and the broom, the palm and wild-cherry, had escaped unbroken, for though the pest appeared to have spent its malice15, death had entered many of the cottages. George Gogg, of the Wheat Sheaf, had lost his daughter, a plump, black-haired, bright-eyed wench, whose red cheeks and red ribbons had turned many a young farmer’s head. Old Sturtevant, the cobbler, had gone the way of all flesh, and several more of the villagers, men, women, and children, were lying under the green-sward in Rodenham church-yard. As for Jeffray, he was but in a feeble way himself, and Surgeon Stott had decreed it that he was to be troubled with no news from the outer world as yet.
Richard, muffled16 up in a dressing-gown, with dusky mottlings covering his thin face, sat before the open window and looked out over the park. The disease had seized him sharply, but not dangerously, and even Richard had vanity enough to feel some satisfaction at Surgeon Stott’s verdict that he would be left with few scars. There is a delicious languor17 in convalescence18 when the world seems to spread itself anew before the reawakened eyes, and life is reborn like a dream of renewed youth into the heart. Nature seems to welcome the exile with smiling eyes and soft breathings of her green-clad bosom19. So might it have been for Richard that spring day as he saw the great trees standing20 so calm and still under the blue heavens, and the green billows of the park a-glisten under the sun.
Sickness is held to solemnize the soul, to chasten the understanding, and purge21 the passion out of man. It is considered to be a season of severe self-judgment, and of inward searchings of the heart, a season when religious impulses should struggle to the surface, and solemn promises be made to propitiate22 the god who has granted health. Such is the orthodox exposition of the doctrine23 of disease. The pious24 hand points to the precipice25 that has provided the mortal with a chance of realizing the abysses of the unknown.
But with Jeffray his recovery was as the coming forth26 of a moth27 from the cramping28 sack of custom. He had much to repent29 of in the past, but the repentance30 was romantic rather than religious. It was a lifting up of the hands to the light, not the wan31 and sickly light of prosaic32 morality, but the glow of the instincts that burn on the altar of nature, the life fire of love, of wonder, and of worship.
It was towards Bess—Bess of the Woods—that Jeffray’s thoughts flew feverishly33 as he lay in bed or sat propped34 up in his chair before the window. He yearned35 to see that face again, to watch the light kindling36 in the keen-sighted eyes, to hear the deep and husky modulations of her voice. He was eager to learn whether she were safe from Dan or no, and to tell her why the tryst37 at Holy Cross had been broken. His thoughts hovered38 more tenderly about her radiant face bathed by the splendor39 of its dusky hair than about Miss Jilian’s tawny40 head. His recollections of Miss Hardacre were neither satisfying to his soul nor flattering to the future. He remembered her as vain, peevish41, ready to wax petulant42 over trifles, selfishly jealous of her own safety.
It is scarcely necessary to spin a flimsy tissue of words about Richard Jeffray’s thoughts. Probably his illness had suffered his convictions to sink to the solid earth instead of drifting feather-like in air. Frankly43, he discovered in himself a strong and aggressive disinclination to make Miss Jilian Hardacre his wife. It was no great psychological problem, but merely a question of nature asserting herself in the magic person of poor Bess. Bess was a finer and lovelier being than Miss Hardacre; she had more soul, more splendor of outline, more womanly suggestiveness. And thus Mr. Richard sat brooding in his chair, watching the clouds drift across the blue, and wondering what the near future had in store for him.
Perhaps Jeffray was not sorry to have his solitude44 broken by the sound of Dick Wilson’s heavy and deliberate footsteps in the gallery, and the shining of his red face round the edge of the oak door. The painter wore the same rusty45 suit of clothes, and he had been mourning his approaching parting with these well-worn retainers, for Surgeon Stott had ordered him to burn every shred46 of them before he left Rodenham. In danger of being “nonsuited,” Mr. Dick was contemplating47 a descent upon the late Mr. Jeffray’s wardrobe, since it was certain that he could not turn Adamite in the cause of cleanliness, and perhaps end in a mad-house by reason of his nudity.
Jeffray’s pale face, with the shadow-rings under the eyes, lighted up at Wilson’s coming. The painter had a roll of manuscript in his hand. He went and sat in the window-seat, after pushing aside the bowl of king-cups, and patted the roll of paper with peculiar49 and amusing emphasis.
“May I congratulate you, sir,” he said, “on having revived the spirit of the Elizabethans?”
“I have, sir, I have. I discovered it in the library, and you will pardon the friendly curiosity that prompted me to bury my nose in it.”
Jeffray laughed shyly, and lay back with his hands clasped behind his head. The painter had unfolded the roll, and, holding it before him, with a quaint52 and sententious pride, read the three opening stanzas53 of the poem.
Jeffray’s face was still red under his waving hair. He laughed, the quiet, pleased laugh of aspiring57 yet incredulous youth, and looked at Wilson with affectionate amusement.
“I am glad you like the work, Dick,” he said. “Heaven knows, I have copied nobody, and yet my lines seem childish when set beside Pope’s or Dryden’s.”
“Childish, sir, and if they are childish, you should thank Heaven for their innocence58. As for Pope, he’s nothing but a pedant59 setting prose on stilts60, and trying to make her tread a stately measure. Why, sir, his poetry is like a respectable old lady knitting epigrams together on her needles. Dash his preciseness, and his pompous61 and ponderous62 conceit63! Set him beside Will Shakespeare, and you will hear an artificial waterfall trying to thunder against the sea.”
Jeffray smiled, and stretched out his hand for the manuscript. He glanced at the neat and sensitive writing with satisfaction, moving his lips the while as though reading certain of his favorite passages over to himself.
“But what would the critics say of them?” he asked.
“Critics, sir!”
“Yes.”
Wilson blew his nose with great vigor64, and grimaced65 as though he had swallowed vinegar. He reached for a volume of the Annual Register, that was lying on the table beside Jeffray’s chair, and opened the book at the place dedicated66 to verse.
“Here, sir,” he said, holding the volume at arm’s-length and declaiming, sententiously, through his nose—“here is the sort of stuff we English feed the imaginative passion on.
“ ‘Sweet social bird! Whose soft harmonious68 lays
Swell the glad song of thy Creator’s praise,
Say, art thou conscious of approaching ills?
“There, sir, there’s the proper pedantic70 stuff for you. It puzzles me to think what our English woods would be like if all the ‘sweet social birds’ sang in that fashion. And can you tell me, sir, why winter is always ‘fell’ with these gentlemen, and any poor thrush ‘a member of the feathered tribe’? Damn it, why can’t they call a wind a wind, instead of ‘Black Boreas’s breath,’ or some such scholarly twaddle? I tell you, Richard, this sort of stuff sickens me; it is like looking at some painted and behooped old hag, and trying to think she’s a pretty shepherdess. Why, sir, your verses are as different from them as the scent48 of new-mown hay from the scent of a beauty’s pomade-box. They smell of the downs and of the woods and the sea, sir—they do that, by gad71!”
“Then you do not think, Dick, that my poetry would be popular?”
“Popular!”
“Yes.”
“No, sir; plain people who love nature and the truth are not popular in these learned days. Why, were I to paint one of your Sussex landscapes with the dawn coming up over the downs a great gush56 of gold, not a soul would look at it; but if I took Lady Tomfool, draped her, shoved her in front of a bit of a Greek temple, made her strike some silly attitude, and called her Juno or Proserpine, or Alcestis returned from Hades, all the silly women would crowd round and gape75 at it, and declare that I had a most classic style.”
Jeffray laughed, and lay back with a thoughtful light in his eyes, as he watched the cloud shadows playing over the sunny heights of Pevensel. Wilson was drumming on the window-sill with his fingers, and still holding the Annual Register upon his knee. He was watching Richard with a grave and bent-browed tenderness, seeming to see in him the spirit of the coming age, when fine gentlemen would give up the carrying of muffs and the writing of odes in imitation of Horace. Men would wake again to the beauty that lived in the woods and upon the mountains. But for the present, Wilson had other duties to perform beside the praising of Jeffray’s poetry. He had been intrusted by Surgeon Stott with the responsibility of breaking the news of Miss Hardacre’s illness to his host. He had desired to put the lad in as good spirits as possible before flinging the unpleasant confession76 in his face.
“There is no doubt, Richard,” he said, slowly, “that you have the true fire in you. Go on, sir, go on as you have begun, and let the big-bellied academicals snort and blow rhetoric77 through their noses. But the Muses78 must go flower-gathering for a moment; I have another matter on my mind this morning.”
There was a forced and suspicious cheerfulness in Wilson’s voice that made Richard Jeffray turn his eyes to him from the slopes of Pevensel. The painter had something of the air of a nurse, who was about to administer physic to a child, pretending barefacedly79 the while that it was sweet and palatable80 as sugared milk. Wilson’s eyes were fixed81 on the Annual Register in his hand; he was turning the leaves and glancing perfunctorily from page to page.
“You are not the only sick person in the neighborhood, Richard,” he said, significantly; “they say that love is wondrous82 sympathetic, and that your Corydon can feel the toothache that is swelling83 in his Chloe’s cheek.”
Jeffray stared at Wilson with vague surprise.
“What do you mean, Dick?” he asked.
“Mean, sir! Why, your betrothed84, like the sweet lady that she is, has been keeping you company in the matter of boluses and bleedings, that is all.”
“Jilian ill?”
Wilson nodded and exercised his facial muscles in the production of a reassuring85 smile.
“Miss Hardacre caught the small-pox, sir,” he explained, “but she is facing it famously, and Stott declares her to be out of danger. Let me assure you, Richard, that there is no need for you to distress86 yourself about the lady. Stott forbade me to mention her illness to you until he felt convinced that she would recover.”
“I must have given it to her, Dick,” he said.
Wilson shut the book up with a snap.
“Nonsense!” he retorted. “Why imagine such a thing? Nothing is to be gained by saddling one’s self with hypothetical responsibilities.”
The sensitive lines about Jeffray’s mouth had deepened, and there was a strained look about his eyes. Wilson, who was watching him affectionately, misread the whole meaning of the mood. He assumed Richard to be in love with Miss Jilian, and magnified his friend’s distress like the warm-hearted fellow that he was.
“Dick.”
“Well, sir?”
“Has she had it badly? Will it—will it disfigure her?”
“Confound it!” he said, cheerfully, “why heap up imaginery woes89, sir? Stott has said nothing about scars. Besides, my dear friend, the lady will recover, and that is the great thing, eh?”
Jeffray lay back heavily in his chair.
“Yes, that is the great thing,” he answered.
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收听单词发音
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1
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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blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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astute
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| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
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grievances
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| n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚 | |
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materialistic
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| a.唯物主义的，物质享乐主义的 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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creased
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的过去式和过去分词 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹； 皱皱巴巴 | |
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12
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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convalescence
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| n.病后康复期 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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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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21
purge
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| n.整肃，清除，泻药，净化；vt.净化，清除，摆脱；vi.清除，通便，腹泻，变得清洁 | |
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propitiate
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| v.慰解，劝解 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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cramping
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| 图像压缩 | |
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repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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repentance
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| n.懊悔 | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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tryst
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| n.约会；v.与…幽会 | |
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hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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tawny
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| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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peevish
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| adj.易怒的，坏脾气的 | |
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petulant
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| adj.性急的，暴躁的 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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46
shred
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| v.撕成碎片，变成碎片；n.碎布条，细片，些少 | |
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47
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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48
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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49
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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50
inditing
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| v.写（文章，信等）创作，赋诗，创作( indite的现在分词 ) | |
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51
epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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52
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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53
stanzas
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| 节，段( stanza的名词复数 ) | |
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54
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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55
gushing
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| adj.迸出的；涌出的；喷出的；过分热情的v.喷，涌( gush的现在分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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56
gush
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| v.喷，涌；滔滔不绝(说话)；n.喷，涌流；迸发 | |
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57
aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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58
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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59
pedant
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| n.迂儒；卖弄学问的人 | |
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60
stilts
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| n.（支撑建筑物高出地面或水面的）桩子，支柱( stilt的名词复数 )；高跷 | |
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pompous
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的；夸大的；豪华的 | |
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ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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64
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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grimaced
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| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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68
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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gad
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| n.闲逛；v.闲逛 | |
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72
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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73
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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gape
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| v.张口，打呵欠，目瞪口呆地凝视 | |
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76
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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77
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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78
muses
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的第三人称单数 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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79
barefacedly
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| adv.不戴面具； 不要脸； 无耻； 露骨 | |
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80
palatable
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| adj.可口的，美味的；惬意的 | |
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81
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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82
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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83
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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84
betrothed
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| n. 已订婚者 动词betroth的过去式和过去分词 | |
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85
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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86
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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87
fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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88
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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89
woes
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| 困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉 | |
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