The ordeal1 was not so dreadful, after all. Dr. Trent was as gruff and abrupt2 as usual, but he did not tell her ailment3 was imaginary. After he had listened to her symptoms and asked a few questions and made a quick examination, he sat for a moment looking at her quite intently. Valancy thought he looked as if he were sorry for her. She caught her breath for a moment. Was the trouble serious? Oh, it couldn’t be, surely—it really hadn’t bothered her much—only lately it had got a little worse.
Dr. Trent opened his mouth—but before he could speak the telephone at his elbow rang sharply. He picked up the receiver. Valancy, watching him, saw his face change suddenly as he listened, “‘Lo—yes—yes—what?—yes—yes”—a brief interval—“My God!”
Dr. Trent dropped the receiver, dashed out of the room and upstairs without even a glance at Valancy. She heard him rushing madly about overhead, barking out a few remarks to somebody—presumably his housekeeper4. Then he came tearing downstairs with a club bag in his hand, snatched his hat and coat from the rack, jerked open the street door and rushed down the street in the direction of the station.
Valancy sat alone in the little office, feeling more absolutely foolish than she had ever felt before in her life. Foolish—and humiliated5. So this was all that had come of her heroic determination to live up to John Foster and cast fear aside. Not only was she a failure as a relative and non-existent as a sweetheart or friend, but she was not even of any importance as a patient. Dr. Trent had forgotten her very presence in his excitement over whatever message had come by the telephone. She had gained nothing by ignoring Uncle James and flying in the face of family tradition.
For a moment she was afraid she was going to cry. It was all so—ridiculous. Then she heard Dr. Trent’s housekeeper coming down the stairs. Valancy rose and went to the office door.
“The doctor forgot all about me,” she said with a twisted smile.
“Well, that’s too bad,” said Mrs. Patterson sympathetically. “But it wasn’t much wonder, poor man. That was a telegram they ’phoned over from the Port. His son has been terribly injured in an auto6 accident in Montreal. The doctor had just ten minutes to catch the train. I don’t know what he’ll do if anything happens to Ned—he’s just bound up in the boy. You’ll have to come again, Miss Stirling. I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“Oh, no, nothing serious,” agreed Valancy. She felt a little less humiliated. It was no wonder poor Dr. Trent had forgotten her at such a moment. Nevertheless, she felt very flat and discouraged as she went down the street.
Valancy went home by the short-cut of Lover’s Lane. She did not often go through Lover’s Lane—but it was getting near supper-time and it would never do to be late. Lover’s Lane wound back of the village, under great elms and maples7, and deserved its name. It was hard to go there at any time and not find some canoodling couple—or young girls in pairs, arms intertwined, earnestly talking over their little secrets. Valancy didn’t know which made her feel more self-conscious and uncomfortable.
This evening she encountered both. She met Connie Hale and Kate Bayley, in new pink organdy dresses with flowers stuck coquettishly in their glossy8, bare hair. Valancy had never had a pink dress or worn flowers in her hair. Then she passed a young couple she didn’t know, dandering along, oblivious9 to everything but themselves. The young man’s arm was around the girl’s waist quite shamelessly. Valancy had never walked with a man’s arm about her. She felt that she ought to be shocked—they might leave that sort of thing for the screening twilight10, at least—but she wasn’t shocked. In another flash of desperate, stark11 honesty she owned to herself that she was merely envious12. When she passed them she felt quite sure they were laughing at her—pitying her—“there’s that queer little old maid, Valancy Stirling. They say she never had a beau in her whole life”—Valancy fairly ran to get out of Lover’s Lane. Never had she felt so utterly13 colourless and skinny and insignificant14.
Just where Lover’s Lane debouched on the street, an old car was parked. Valancy knew that car well—by sound, at least—and everybody in Deerwood knew it. This was before the phrase “tin Lizzie” had come into circulation—in Deerwood, at least; but if it had been known, this car was the tinniest of Lizzies—though it was not a Ford15 but an old Grey Slosson. Nothing more battered16 and disreputable could be imagined.
It was Barney Snaith’s car and Barney himself was just scrambling17 up from under it, in overalls18 plastered with mud. Valancy gave him a swift, furtive19 look as she hurried by. This was only the second time she had ever seen the notorious Barney Snaith, though she had heard enough about him in the five years that he had been living “up back” in Muskoka. The first time had been nearly a year ago, on the Muskoka road. He had been crawling out from under his car then, too, and he had given her a cheerful grin as she went by—a little, whimsical grin that gave him the look of an amused gnome20. He didn’t look bad—she didn’t believe he was bad, in spite of the wild yarns21 that were always being told of him. Of course he went tearing in that terrible old Grey Slosson through Deerwood at hours when all decent people were in bed—often with old “Roaring Abel,” who made the night hideous22 with his howls—“both of them dead drunk, my dear.” And every one knew that he was an escaped convict and a defaulting bank clerk and a murderer in hiding and an infidel and an illegitimate son of old Roaring Abel Gay and the father of Roaring Abel’s illegitimate grandchild and a counterfeiter23 and a forger24 and a few other awful things. But still Valancy didn’t believe he was bad. Nobody with a smile like that could be bad, no matter what he had done.
It was that night the Prince of the Blue Castle changed from a being of grim jaw25 and hair with a dash of premature26 grey to a rakish individual with overlong, tawny27 hair, dashed with red, dark-brown eyes, and ears that stuck out just enough to give him an alert look but not enough to be called flying jibs. But he still retained something a little grim about the jaw.
Barney Snaith looked even more disreputable than usual just now. It was very evident that he hadn’t shaved for days, and his hands and arms, bare to the shoulders, were black with grease. But he was whistling gleefully to himself and he seemed so happy that Valancy envied him. She envied him his light-heartedness and his irresponsibility and his mysterious little cabin up on an island in Lake Mistawis—even his rackety old Grey Slosson. Neither he nor his car had to be respectable and live up to traditions. When he rattled28 past her a few minutes later, bareheaded, leaning back in his Lizzie at a raffish29 angle, his longish hair blowing in the wind, a villainous-looking old black pipe in his mouth, she envied him again. Men had the best of it, no doubt about that. This outlaw30 happy, whatever he was or wasn’t. She, Valancy Stirling, respectable, well-behaved to the last degree, was unhappy and had always been unhappy. So there you were.
Valancy was just in time for supper. The sun had clouded over, and a dismal31, drizzling32 rain was falling again. Cousin Stickles had the neuralgia. Valancy had to do the family darning and there was no time for Magic of Wings.
“Can’t the darning wait till tomorrow?” she pleaded.
“Tomorrow will bring its own duties,” said Mrs. Frederick inexorably.
Valancy darned all the evening and listened to Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles talking the eternal, niggling gossip of the clan33, as they knitted drearily34 at interminable black stockings. They discussed Second Cousin Lilian’s approaching wedding in all its bearings. On the whole, they approved. Second Cousin Lilian was doing well for herself.
“Though she hasn’t hurried,” said Cousin Stickles. “She must be twenty-five.”
“There have not—fortunately—been many old maids in our connection,” said Mrs. Frederick bitterly.
Third Cousin Aaron Gray had been scratched by a cat and had blood-poisoning in his finger. “Cats are most dangerous animals,” said Mrs. Frederick. “I would never have a cat about the house.”
She glared significantly at Valancy through her terrible glasses. Once, five years ago, Valancy had asked if she might have a cat. She had never referred to it since, but Mrs. Frederick still suspected her of harbouring the unlawful desire in her heart of hearts.
Once Valancy sneezed. Now, in the Stirling code, it was very bad form to sneeze in public.
“You can always repress a sneeze by pressing your finger on your upper lip,” said Mrs. Frederick rebukingly36.
Half-past nine o’clock and so, as Mr. Pepys would say, to bed. But First Cousin Stickles’ neuralgic back must be rubbed with Redfern’s Liniment. Valancy did that. Valancy always had to do it. She hated the smell of Redfern’s Liniment—she hated the smug, beaming, portly, be-whiskered, be-spectacled picture of Dr. Redfern on the bottle. Her fingers smelled of the horrible stuff after she got into bed, in spite of all the scrubbing she gave them.
Valancy’s day of destiny had come and gone. She ended it as she had begun it, in tears.
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收听单词发音
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1
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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2
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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3
ailment
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| n.疾病，小病 | |
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housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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humiliated
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| 感到羞愧的 | |
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6
auto
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| n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车 | |
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7
maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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8
glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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9
oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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11
stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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12
envious
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| adj.嫉妒的，羡慕的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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15
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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16
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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17
scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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18
overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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19
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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20
gnome
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| n.土地神；侏儒，地精 | |
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21
yarns
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| n.纱( yarn的名词复数 )；纱线；奇闻漫谈；旅行轶事 | |
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22
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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23
counterfeiter
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| n.伪造者 | |
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forger
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| v.伪造；n.（钱、文件等的）伪造者 | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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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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28
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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29
raffish
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| adj.名誉不好的，无赖的，卑鄙的，艳俗的 | |
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30
outlaw
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| n.歹徒，亡命之徒；vt.宣布…为不合法 | |
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31
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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32
drizzling
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| 下蒙蒙细雨，下毛毛雨( drizzle的现在分词 ) | |
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33
clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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34
drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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35
flinched
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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36
rebukingly
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