Thus Bess and Jeffray rode into Rodenham together, while the scent1 of the wet grass floated on the warm air, and the great cedars2 smelled of Lebanon. The storm shower had beaten down the grass in places, so that in the dim light it seemed like the swirling3 eddies4 of a restless sea. A night-jar whirred in the beechwoods above the road. Rabbits scurried5 hither and thither6. Jeffray could faintly see the heads of his deer rising above the bracken on the edge of the wood.
Soon the old house, black-chimneyed, a pile of shadows, with here and there a window gleaming, rose up before them out of the east. Bess drew her breath in deeply, seeing that his eyes were fixed7 upon the place. She was wondering whether he was sad at leaving such a home to go alone with her into strange lands.
“Of what are you thinking?” he asked her, suddenly.
“I was thinking of that,” she said, pointing to the house.
“Yes.”
“Can you leave it all for me?”
“Why not?” he asked, with no wavering of his words.
“It is your home.”
“And will be yours.”
“Ah—”
“Some day, when the clouds are gone. We are young yet; we can take our home with us in our hearts.”
She looked at him very dearly, yet with some sadness in her eyes.
“I am wondering,” she said.
“Yes, what are you wondering, Bess?”
“Whether I can make you happy, I who am so poor and ignorant.”
“I have no doubts,” he said, “no doubts whatsoever8.”
As they rode up to the terrace with the gardens and shrubberies dim and full of perfume under the night sky, Dick Wilson and Gladden came out from the porch. Wilson gave Jeffray a hearty9 hail, running forward with out-stretched hand, his eyes twinkling below the bandages that swathed his head.
Jeffray had dismounted, but Bess was still on her horse looking down half shyly, half haughtily11 at the painter, as though mistrusting the good-will of her lover’s friend. Wilson, who had the instinct of chivalry12 quick and warm under his ugly exterior13, went to her with a twinkle in his eyes, and, bowing in the most impressive fashion, took her hand and kissed it.
“May I ask your pardon, madam,” he said, quaintly14, “for having proved such a dunderhead of a fellow this afternoon?”
Bess eyed him questioningly.
“You have been wounded?” she asked.
“A slight cut, a slight cut across the pate15 with a hanger16. I am a clumsy fool at my weapons. May I have the honor of helping17 you to dismount?”
Bess was down beside him before the words were half passed his lips. She stood at her full height before the painter, the light from one of the windows falling on her face. Wilson understood of a sudden how this tall, proud-faced forest child had set Jeffray’s manhood in a blaze.
Jeffray, who had been speaking to Gladden, came back and laid his hand on Wilson’s shoulder.
“This is Mrs. Elizabeth Grimshaw, Dick,” he said, with the pride of a lover; “you have been paying your respects to her.”
“I have, sir, I have,” quoth the painter with a bow.
Bess, who had taken a liking18 to this ugly but honest-eyed man, smiled at him, and held out a hand.
“I thank you for having helped us,” she said.
“Don’t thank me, madam,” retorted the painter, bluntly. “Mr. Richard here is quite capable of fighting his own battles.”
They laughed—the three of them, Bess and Jeffray looking into each other’s eyes. Wilson still studying with inevitable19 admiration20 the face and figure of the woman who had changed a dreamer into a man of fire and action. Peter Gladden was waiting at the hall-door, smirking21, and rubbing his smooth chin with his fingers. Jeffray, giving his hand to Bess, led her with an Old-World courtliness up the steps and into the house. The butler stood aside, bowing and fixing his eyes deferentially23 upon his master’s shoes. He cast a peering, birdlike glance at Bess after she had passed, grinned as he caught Mr. Wilson’s eye, and smothered24 the smirk22 instantly as the painter’s stare snubbed him. Jeffray led Bess to the dining-room where supper had been spread hastily upon the table. He drew back a chair for her, dismissed Gladden, who came in with a mincing25 shuffle26, and prepared to wait on Bess in person.
“You must eat,” he said, bending slightly over her chair.
“I am not hungry.”
“No, but you must keep up your strength. I will carve you some venison, and here is good red wine. I shall stand behind your chair till I am satisfied with you. And then—”
“And then?” she said, smiling with her eyes.
“I shall send you above to bed. The coach will be ready for us at seven. Come now, you must humor me; I have the guarding of your health.”
An hour later Bess was lying under the crimson28 canopy29 in the great bed above, her limbs between the white sheets, her black hair in a love tangle30 on the pillow. Jeffray had called Gladden to him in the dining-room, and given him his orders. Poor Gladden imagined that the family dignity must be sinking very deep into the mire31. He met the amazing foolhardiness of it all with melancholy32 stoicism, finished the contents of a half-emptied wine-bottle when his master had gone, and confessed to himself that time and women can wreck33 empires.
Jeffray found Dick Wilson in the library, lighting34 his pipe at one of the candles, sucking in his cheeks, and looking as solemn over the ceremony as though the truth of immortality35 hung upon the proper kindling36 of the weed. He cocked one eye at Jeffray, smiled, and set himself with his back to the mantle-shelf, one white cotton stocking in wrinkles half way down his leg, his waistcoat fastened by two solitary37 buttons, the folds of the bandage slipping over his left eyebrow38. He puffed39 away at his pipe, while Jeffray turned to the bureau, unlocked it, and took out the letters he had written the previous morning.
“You will see these delivered, Dick,” he said, “after I am gone?”
Wilson looked at his friend keenly.
“So you are going, sir?” he said.
“Yes, I have ordered the coach at seven. We have no time to be married in England.”
“What, you are going to be married!”
“Yes. The girl’s husband is dead.”
“The devil he is!”
“There has been a tussle42 between Garston’s smugglers and the King’s men; the fellow Grimshaw was shot in the scrimmage.”
A look of most unchristian satisfaction spread itself over the painter’s face. He stepped forward and held out his hand.
“I congratulate you, sir—I congratulate you.”
“Thanks, Dick.”
“The stumbling-block is removed out of the path of propriety44. And why, if I may ask you, must you be in such an infatuated hurry to be gone?”
“Snub me, sir, snub me if I seem too forward. You can come by a license46 in a few days; there must be some obliging surrogate in the neighborhood. At the worst you can travel up to London, march to Doctors’ Commons, and secure a proper passport to the seventh heaven.”
Jeffray, pacing to and fro with his shoulders squared and the heels of his shoes coming down squarely on the polished floor, shook his head, and refused the suggestion.
“I have my reasons, Dick,” he said, “and I have thought the whole thing through for myself. Some years ago old Sugg could have married us here in my own house, and for my sake I should like to see Lord Hardwicke and his grandmotherly legislation damned. I want to get the girl away from all the pother that will be brewing47, to save her from the tongues of our most Christian43 friends. To-morrow we drive to Lewes; the next day to the sea.”
Wilson rammed48 down the tobacco in his pipe with the end of his little finger, relit it at the candle, and puffed on reflectively.
“Well, sir,” he said, “I should like to know how you rescued the lady.”
And Jeffray told him, all save the way in which Dan Grimshaw met his death.
It was well after midnight when Peter Gladden lighted Jeffray to his room. Portmanteaus and valises were scattered49 about, some half filled, others yawning for the white linen50, breeches, silk stockings, and clothes that covered the floor in confusion. Jeffray insisted on Gladden completing the packing before he went to bed. He had already discovered a polite and voiceless antagonism51 in the old man’s manner, as though Gladden persisted in believing that the romance was but the madness of an hour. He helped the butler to fill and strap52 the valises, and then dismissed him, ordering him to wake him at five.
The candles were still burning in the library when the dawn came creeping into the east. Wilson, rubbing his eyes as he woke from a short sleep, heard the rumbling53 of wheels as the great coach was drawn54 out of the coach-house into the stable-yard. There was the jingling55 of harness being cleaned, the sound of rough voices gossiping together, an occasional coarse laugh bursting out upon the misty56 air. The grooms57 were discussing their master’s love affair. Wilson yawned and stretched his limbs, climbed up out of his chair, snuffed the candles, and went out into the hall.
He met Jeffray coming down the oak stairs, a cloak over one arm, his sword under the other. As the men shook hands there was the sound of a door opening in the gallery above. Light footsteps came down the stairway; Bess, with her gray cloak over her shoulders, descended58 slowly towards the hall. She looked fresh and pure after her night’s rest, her eyes soft and dewy, her red lips parted in a smile. Jeffray waited for her at the foot of the stairs. He took her hand and kissed it, and led her into the dining-room, looking into her eyes.
“You are rested?” he asked her, with a pressure of the hand.
“Yes—quite.”
“We shall start in an hour or two. We have much to do at Lewes.”
Bess looked at her clothes, her short skirt and green petticoat, and then glanced at Jeffray.
“I have thought of all that,” he said, smiling.
“Ah—”
“You shall look as fine a lady as any in Sussex. Silks and brocades, Bess, you shall have them all.”
In the midst of all the bustle59 of preparation, a trooper of the Light-Horse Regiment60 came cantering through the park with a letter for Richard Jeffray tucked under his white belt. Wilson saw the speck61 of scarlet62 from the terrace, and, walking down the drive, met the man as he reined63 up before the iron gates closing the garden. The trooper produced his letter and explained that he had been told, to deliver it into Mr. Jeffray’s hands. Jeffray himself appeared on the terrace at the same moment, and the painter, beckoning64 to him, turned back with the soldier.
“A letter for you, sir,” he said, as Jeffray came up to them.
The trooper saluted65, and delivered the despatch66. Jeffray ordered him to ride round to the stable and have his horse watered, and rubbed down with straw.
“From your cornet, I presume?” he asked.
The man nodded and rode on in the direction of the stables.
Jeffray and the painter went back to the terrace and leaned against the balustrade. There was an anxious frown on Jeffray’s face as he broke the seal, and spread the letter on the stone coping before him. He ran his eyes over the straggling and ill-formed sentences, his face clearing as he neared the end.
“Sir,—Having promised to obtain for you any information bearing upon Mrs. Elizabeth Grimshaw’s past, I send you a rough copy of an extraordinary confession67 made to me by an old woman we found tied to a chair in one of the cottages. I cannot promise you how much truth there is in her tale, but on searching the place called the Monk’s Grave, we discovered that the turf some twenty paces from the old tree that grows on the mound68 there, had been trampled69 down quite recently. On digging we found the earth very loose, as though it had been lately turned, also a ragged70 piece of sail cloth, but no treasure. It is probable that the money has been taken up and hidden elsewhere, and the suspicion is strengthened by the fact that the old man, Isaac Grimshaw, is still at large. The man whom we found dead in the grass has been sworn to as Mrs. Elizabeth Grimshaw’s husband.
“I trust that these facts will be of interest to you.
“Unfortunately my duties here prevent me from dining with you to-day. I take the liberty of postponing71 the pleasure till to-morrow.
“James Jellicoe,
“Cornet in his Majesty’s—Regiment of Horse.”
Enclosed within the letter, Jeffray found a page torn from a pocket-book, and covered with the cornet’s boyish writing. He held it towards Wilson, and they spelled it out together, experiencing some difficulty in deciphering the sentences that seemed to have been written in the dusk.
Statement made by Mrs. Ursula Grimshaw this 1st day of July, 17 —:
“I am Isaac Grimshaw’s sister. The girl Bess, my nephew’s wife, is not of our blood. Twenty years ago come Michaelmas, four sailor men came into the forest with a treasure chest, arms, and a young child. They lodged72 in my brother Isaac’s cottage, and he and they talked much together. The chest contained much money and precious things. My brother Isaac and his son John, who has been dead these fifteen years, murdered these four sailors when they were drunk, and buried their bodies in the forest. We kept the child as one of us, and called her Bess, and hid the treasure in the woods.
“My brother Isaac told me that the four sailors had murdered the captain and crew of their ship, also a King’s officer and his wife who were passengers. Bess, who was the lady’s child, they saved out of pity, and because she was scarcely three years old. The ship, whose name I never knew, was scuttled73 in a fog off Beachy Head, the four sailor men coming ashore74 in the jolly-boat with the treasure and the child. The chest was buried in the forest near a place known as the Monk’s Grave. This, God help me! is all I know. I have kept this secret twenty years.”
Jeffray and the painter looked hard into each other’s eyes when they had read the confession through. There was a slight flush as of triumph on Jeffray’s face, as he held out his hand exultantly75 to Wilson.
“We go to Lewes after all,” he said.
“Sir!”
“I shall send a letter back by the trooper to Cornet Jellicoe, thanking him, and saying that I have gone to Lewes on legal business. We will cross the water to-morrow, God helping us!”
Wilson gave his friend a keen look, and tapped the letter with his finger.
“There is still a mystery here, sir,” he said.
“What does it matter, Dick—what does it matter?”
“If this be true—”
“True! Why, damn it, Dick, I have always believed it true. Do you think that girl was born in a hovel?”
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收听单词发音
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1
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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2
cedars
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| 雪松，西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 ) | |
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3
swirling
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 ) | |
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eddies
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| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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5
scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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6
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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7
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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8
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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9
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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10
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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11
haughtily
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| adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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12
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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13
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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14
quaintly
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| adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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15
pate
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| n.头顶；光顶 | |
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16
hanger
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| n.吊架，吊轴承；挂钩 | |
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17
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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18
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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19
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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20
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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21
smirking
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| v.傻笑( smirk的现在分词 ) | |
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22
smirk
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| n.得意地笑；v.傻笑；假笑着说 | |
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23
deferentially
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| adv.表示敬意地，谦恭地 | |
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24
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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25
mincing
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| adj.矫饰的；v.切碎；切碎 | |
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26
shuffle
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| n.拖著脚走，洗纸牌；v.拖曳，慢吞吞地走 | |
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27
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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28
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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29
canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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30
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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mire
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| n.泥沼，泥泞；v.使...陷于泥泞，使...陷入困境 | |
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32
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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33
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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35
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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36
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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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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38
eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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39
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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40
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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41
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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42
tussle
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| n.&v.扭打，搏斗，争辩 | |
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43
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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44
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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45
divulge
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| v.泄漏(秘密等)；宣布，公布 | |
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46
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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47
brewing
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| n. 酿造, 一次酿造的量 动词brew的现在分词形式 | |
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48
rammed
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| v.夯实（土等）( ram的过去式和过去分词 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输 | |
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49
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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50
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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51
antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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52
strap
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| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
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53
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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54
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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55
jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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56
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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57
grooms
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| n.新郎( groom的名词复数 )；马夫v.照料或梳洗（马等）( groom的第三人称单数 )；使做好准备；训练；（给动物）擦洗 | |
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58
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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59
bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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60
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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61
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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62
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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63
reined
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| 勒缰绳使（马）停步( rein的过去式和过去分词 )； 驾驭； 严格控制； 加强管理 | |
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64
beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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65
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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66
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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67
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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68
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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69
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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70
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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71
postponing
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| v.延期，推迟( postpone的现在分词 ) | |
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72
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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73
scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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74
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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75
exultantly
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| adv.狂欢地，欢欣鼓舞地 | |
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