Surgeon Stott, that blue-coated member of the company of surgeons, pounced1 upon Jeffray next morning, and delivered a most professional condemnation2 of his patient’s method of convalescence3.
“Too much riding—too much riding, sir, eh? Hardacre House yesterday; fourteen miles there and back! Not very gentle exercise, to be sure.”
Richard Jeffray had the mopes that morning, and Stott fully4 believed that he knew the cause thereof. He sniffed5, pulled out his gold repeater, and sat with his head cocked on one side as he held Jeffray’s wrist between his thumb and fat, pink fingers.
“I am going to order you to The Wells, sir,” he said, bluntly.
“The Wells!”
“Yes, for the good of both parties. Pardon the suggestion, but ladies need time for proper and reasonable convalescence. Let there be an interlude, Mr. Jeffray; I recommend it as a man of sentiment.”
Jeffray caught the surgeon’s meaning, and discovered himself not so very prejudiced against the proposal, in that it offered him time for procrastinating6 with the future. He had had but little sleep the previous night, with Jilian’s scarred face haunting him and her patheticisms and her sneers7 ringing changes in his brain. He experienced an almost fierce desire to escape for a while from the importunate8 responsibilities of the present.
“Very probably, Stott, the change would do me good,” he said.
“Certainly, sir, certainly; pack your books away, and leave the thinking part of you at home. That is my advice—take it or leave it, as you like.”
Jeffray flattered the surgeon by acknowledging his authority, and by straightway deciding to join the Lady Letitia at The Wells for one month. He was glad of the excuse to commend himself to Jilian by letter, pleading ill-health and Surgeon Stott’s advice. He imagined that his absence might prepare Miss Hardacre for a possible parting, and at least he would gain leisure to face the future calmly and without haste.
He rode out that same evening, and found Bess in the valley of yews10, a dusky fiord that ran from the green levels about Thorney Chapel11 into the towering gloom of Pevensel. Hundreds of yews were crowded about piled-up rocks that looked like the broken towers and battlements of a ruin. A path ran amid the trees, leading to a little glade12 where a pool covered with the white stars of the water-crowfoot glimmered13 before the old, rock-cut hermitage.
She started up on seeing him, the blood in her cheeks, sunlight in her eyes. Jeffray was as red as Bess, the sense of her nearness adding the charm of strangeness to the meeting.
“So you have found your way?”
She held out her hands, and Jeffray took them, brown and rough-skinned as they were. They seemed to smell of new mown hay and milk to him, and of the pots of musk14 that grow in cottage windows.
“I rode here last night, but you did not come.”
“No, I could not get free from Dan.”
They stood looking at each other awhile in silence, as though letting the subtle consciousness of love steal in upon their hearts. All about them the brown trunks of the yews broke into sheaves of dusky pinnacles15 and slender spires16. The silence of the place was as the silence of some sacred wood. The grass grew green and deep in the glade, while the thickets17 above seemed dusted with lapis lazuli, so thick were the bluebells18.
Bess seated herself on a stone beside the pool, Jeffray lying in the grass at her feet. The happy abandonment of children was theirs, for the sordidness19 of life seemed far from them for the moment. Bess’s eyes darkened a little when Jeffray told her of Surgeon Stott’s warning to him that morning, but there was no distrust upon her face. Stott’s month at The Wells was dwindling20 to vanishing point in Jeffray’s mind as he talked to Bess, and watched the play of feeling on her face.
It was then that Bess spoke21 for the first time to Jeffray of Miss Hardacre. She had thought often of the great lady in her silks and brocades queening it in the stately house guarded by its ancestral trees. Bess wished to hear Jeffray speak of this woman whom he was to marry, and to watch his eyes to see whether they lit up like a lover’s eyes.
Jeffray’s face and mood changed on the instant; he was no longer the dreamer watching the sun sinking behind the yews.
“Why do you ask me about Miss Hardacre?”
Bess saw that the thought was bitter to him, and yet felt glad at heart.
“I know,” she said, slowly, “you are to marry her.”
“Who told you that?”
“Miss Sugg, before—”
“Before you married Dan?”
“Yes.”
Jeffray turned, and leaned upon one hand, looking at the pool and the reflection of the sky that colored the water.
“Did you believe it?” he asked her, quietly.
“Yes, I had to.”
“What did you think?”
“I thought it wonderful that you should have been so kind to me.”
Jeffray plucked at the long grass with his hands, and laughed, and the note of bitterness in his laughter made her understand all that was hidden in his heart.
“You were generous to me, Bess,” he said, grimly; “and how often I have hated myself, you cannot tell. Still, child—” and he looked up at her with brightening eyes—“it is not for me to put the weight upon your shoulders. I do not know whether I shall marry this fine lady. Let us forget her to-night, you and I.”
He might have told Bess that he hated Jilian, for her woman’s instinct had seized the truth, a secret joy finding rebellion easy in her heart. Jeffray had no love for the woman he was to marry, a confession22 that Bess had almost hoped to hear. She felt now that she could lean on Jeffray, and look perhaps for a more mysterious thing than pity.
Bess understood but vaguely23 what the future might devise. It was sufficient for her to know that Jeffray’s thoughts were hers and not Miss Hardacre’s. A great barrier seemed to have been beaten down between them, and she felt happier that night than she had felt for many days. They talked on as the twilight24 gathered, like children beside a deep and treacherous25 river, the one bank rich with sunshine, the other a chaos26 of light and shade. As yet they would not dare the deeps. Sufficient unto the hour was their joy in each other’s presence.
When the twilight deepened, Bess went away through the solemn yews, smiling to herself over the new hope born within her heart, while Jeffray rode back like one in a dream through the darkening thickets, and the long, odorous grass towards his home. Before noon next day he had shaken Dick Wilson by the hand, and was travelling over the heavy Sussex roads, Peter Gladden wondering why his master looked so sad.
The night after Bess’s meeting with Jeffray in the yew9 valley, Dan told his wife that he was going out after wild duck to the Holy Cross pools, and, shouldering his gun, left Bess alone to go to bed. The sky was clear, with a full moon swinging up in the east above the tangled27 boughs28 of the pines. Dan slipped away to old Isaac’s cottage with his black spaniel at his heels, and, keeping under the shadows of the orchard29, knocked at the heavy door. A candle was burning in the lower room, the pewter and china, the brass30 work, and quaint31 furniture showing through the curtainless window. A figure rose up from an arm-chair before the fire, stopped a moment by the table to snuff the candle. Then the bolts were shot back, and Isaac’s white head came peering out into the moonlight. He had a lantern in one hand and a canvas-bag in the other, while with a keen glance at Dan he jerked his head in the direction of an out-house standing32 in the garden.
“Get the pick and spade, lad.”
Isaac slammed the door after him by the bobbin-cord, and waited by the garden-gate while Dan groped in the shed for the tools. Finding them at last, he swung the spade and pick over one shoulder, and carried the gun sloped over the other. They set off together in the moonlight and took a southward path that plunged33 into the deeps of Pevensel.
Bess was creaming the milk in the little dairy next morning when Dan came in to her, grinning and looking good-humored. His clumsy shoes were foul34 with muck from the byre, his shirt open, showing his hairy chest. He hugged Bess, flattening35 his coarse lips on her cheek, the girl taking the kiss with dull-eyed self-restraint.
“I’ve got a present for ye, Bess.”
The wife kept her color and looked calmly at her husband.
He fumbled37 in his pocket, his eyes fixed38 the while on the girl’s face. Bess saw a scrap39 of gold in his palm, green stones shining like a dog’s eyes in the light. Dan chuckled40, his hairy and sweating chest heaving. He held the brooch out to her.
She took it from Dan’s palm, and, as by instinct, pinned it on the red handkerchief that covered her bosom43. The man’s clumsy courting reminded her by contrast of Richard Jeffray. She hated her husband’s sweating bulk and the stare of his eyes.
“I like it well enough, Dan,” she said.
“Now don’t you be for asking questions. Give me the kisses, wench. Lud, but I like ye; I like every limb and tooth of ye, Bess.”
Dan kissed her twice, though she shuddered44 as his hairy arms crushed her against his chest. When Dan had gone she shook her clothes as though to rid them of the scent45 of him, and dashed water from the pump into her face. Then she took the brooch, and, standing before the lattice-window with the great beams dark overhead, gazed at it a long while, holding it in the hollow of her hand.
A rush of strange memories had flooded back into her brain, dim and tantalizing46, yet full of meaning. This was the brooch she remembered at the throat of the tall lady who had run to comfort her when she had fallen and cut her knees as a little child. How had Dan come by it? To whom had it belonged?
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1
pounced
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| v.突然袭击( pounce的过去式和过去分词 )；猛扑；一眼看出；抓住机会（进行抨击） | |
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2
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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3
convalescence
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| n.病后康复期 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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5
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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6
procrastinating
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| 拖延，耽搁( procrastinate的现在分词 )； 拖拉 | |
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7
sneers
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| 讥笑的表情（言语）( sneer的名词复数 ) | |
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8
importunate
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| adj.强求的；纠缠不休的 | |
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9
yew
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| n.紫杉属树木 | |
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yews
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| n.紫杉( yew的名词复数 ) | |
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11
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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12
glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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glimmered
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| v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
musk
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| n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫 | |
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15
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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17
thickets
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| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
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bluebells
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| n.圆叶风铃草( bluebell的名词复数 ) | |
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sordidness
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| n.肮脏；污秽；卑鄙；可耻 | |
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dwindling
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| adj.逐渐减少的v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的现在分词 ) | |
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21
spoke
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| 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 | |
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22
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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23
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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24
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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25
treacherous
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| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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26
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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28
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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29
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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30
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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31
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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32
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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33
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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34
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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35
flattening
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| n. 修平 动词flatten的现在分词 | |
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36
smacks
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| 掌掴（声）( smack的名词复数 )； 海洛因； （打的）一拳； 打巴掌 | |
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37
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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38
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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39
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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40
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
bauble
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| n.美观而无价值的饰物 | |
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42
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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43
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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44
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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45
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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46
tantalizing
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| adj.逗人的；惹弄人的；撩人的；煽情的v.逗弄，引诱，折磨( tantalize的现在分词 ) | |
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