Ethel Henderson sat at her machine before the window of Mr. Lagume's study, and stared blankly at the greys and blues1 of the November twilight2. Her face was white, her eyelids3 were red from recent weeping, and her hands lay motionless in her lap. The door had just slammed behind Lagune.
"Heigh-ho!" she said. "I wish I was dead. Oh! I wish I was out of it all."
She became passive again. "I wonder what I have _done_," she said, "that I should be punished like this."
She certainly looked anything but a Fate-haunted soul, being indeed visibly and immediately a very pretty girl. Her head was shapely and covered with curly dark hair, and the eyebrows4 above her hazel eyes were clear and dark. Her lips were finely shaped, her mouth was not too small to be expressive5, her chin small, and her neck white and full and pretty. There is no need to lay stress upon her nose--it sufficed. She was of a mediocre6 height, sturdy rather than slender, and her dress was of a pleasant, golden-brown material with the easy sleeves and graceful7 line of those aesthetic8 days. And she sat at her typewriter and wished she was dead and wondered what she had _done_.
The room was lined with bookshelves, and conspicuous9 therein were a long row of foolish pretentious10 volumes, the "works" of Lagune--the witless, meandering11 imitation of philosophy that occupied his life. Along the cornices were busts12 of Plato, Socrates, and Newton. Behind Ethel was the great man's desk with its green-shaded electric light, and littered with proofs and copies of _Hesperus_, "A Paper for Doubters," which, with her assistance, he edited, published, compiled, wrote, and (without her help) paid for and read. A pen, flung down forcibly, quivered erect13 with its one surviving nib14 in the blotting15 pad. Mr. Lagune had flung it down.
The collapse16 of the previous night had distressed17 him dreadfully, and ever and again before his retreat he had been breaking into passionate18 monologue19. The ruin of a life-work, it was, no less. Surely she had known that Chaffery was a cheat. Had she not known? Silence. "After so many kindnesses--"
She interrupted him with a wailing20, "Oh, I know--I know."
But Lagune was remorseless and insisted she had betrayed him, worse--made him ridiculous! Look at the "work" he had undertaken at South Kensington--how could he go on with that now? How could he find the heart? When his own typewriter sacrificed him to her stepfather's trickery? "Trickery!"
The gesticulating hands became active, the grey eyes dilated21 with indignation, the piping voice eloquent22.
"If he hadn't cheated you, someone else would," was Ethel's inadequate23 muttered retort, unheard by the seeker after phenomena24.
It was perhaps not so bad as dismissal, but it certainly lasted longer. And at home was Chaffery, grimly malignant25 at her failure to secure that pneumatic glove. He had no right to blame her, he really had not; but a disturbed temper is apt to falsify the scales of justice. The tambourine26, he insisted, he could have explained by saying he put up his hand to catch it and protect his head directly Smithers moved. But the pneumatic glove there was no explaining. He had made a chance for her to secure it when he had pretended to faint. It was rubbish to say anyone could have been looking on the table then--rubbish.
Beside that significant wreck27 of a pen stood a little carriage clock in a case, and this suddenly lifted a slender voice and announced _five_. She turned round on her stool and sat staring at the clock. She smiled with the corners of her mouth down. "Home," she said, "and begin again. It's like battledore and shuttlecock....
"I _was_ silly....
"I suppose I've brought it on myself. I ought to have picked it up, I suppose. I had time....
"Cheats ... just cheats.
"I never thought I should see him again....
"He was ashamed, of course.... He had his own friends."
For a space she sat still, staring blankly before her. She sighed, rubbed a knuckle28 in a reddened eye, rose.
She went into the hall, where her hat, transfixed by a couple of hat-pins, hung above her jacket, assumed these garments, and let herself out into the cold grey street.
She had hardly gone twenty yards from Lagune's door before she became aware of a man overtaking her and walking beside her. That kind of thing is a common enough experience to girls who go to and from work in London, and she had had perforce to learn many things since her adventurous29 Whortley days. She looked stiffly in front of her. The man deliberately30 got in her way so that she had to stop. She lifted eyes of indignant protest. It was Lewisham--and his face was white.
He hesitated awkwardly, and then in silence held out his hand. She took it mechanically. He found his voice. "Miss Henderson," he said.
"What do you want?" she asked faintly.
"I don't know," he said.... "I want to talk to you."
"Yes?" Her heart was beating fast.
He found the thing unexpectedly difficult.
"May I--? Are you expecting--? Have you far to go? I would like to talk to you. There is a lot ..."
"I walk to Clapham," she said. "If you care ... to come part of the way ..."
She moved awkwardly. Lewisham took his place at her side. They walked side by side for a moment, their manner constrained31, having so much to say that they could not find a word to begin upon.
"Have you forgotten Whortley?" he asked abruptly32.
"No."
He glanced at her; her face was downcast. "Why did you never write?" he asked bitterly.
"I wrote."
"Again, I mean."
"I did--in July."
"I never had it."
"It came back."
"But Mrs. Munday ..."
"I had forgotten her name. I sent it to the Grammar School."
Lewisham suppressed an exclamation33.
"I am very sorry," she said.
They went on again in silence. "Last night," said Lewisham at length. "I have no business to ask. But--"
She took a long breath. "Mr. Lewisham," she said. "That man you saw--the Medium--was my stepfather."
"Well?"
"Isn't that enough?"
Lewisham paused. "No," he said.
There was another constrained silence. "No," he said less dubiously34. "I don't care a rap what your stepfather is. Were _you_ cheating?"
Her face turned white. Her mouth opened and closed. "Mr. Lewisham," she said deliberately, "you may not believe it, it may sound impossible, but on my honour ... I did not know--I did not know for certain, that is--that my stepfather ..."
"Ah!" said Lewisham, leaping at conviction. "Then I was right...."
For a moment she stared at him, and then, "I _did_ know," she said, suddenly beginning to cry. "How can I tell you? It is a lie. I _did_ know. I _did_ know all the time."
He stared at her in white astonishment35. He fell behind her one step, and then in a stride came level again. Then, a silence, a silence that seemed it would never end. She had stopped crying, she was one huge suspense36, not daring even to look at his face. And at last he spoke37.
"No," he said slowly. "I don't mind even that. I don't care--even if it was that."
Abruptly they turned into the King's Road, with its roar of wheeled traffic and hurrying foot-passengers, and forthwith a crowd of boys with a broken-spirited Guy involved and separated them. In a busy highway of a night one must needs talk disconnectedly in shouted snatches or else hold one's peace. He glanced at her face and saw that it was set again. Presently she turned southward out of the tumult38 into a street of darkness and warm blinds, and they could go on talking again.
"I understand what you mean," said Lewisham. "I know I do. You knew, but you did not want to know. It was like that."
But her mind had been active. "At the end of this road," she said, gulping39 a sob40, "you must go back. It was kind of you to come, Mr. Lewisham. But you were ashamed--you are sure to be ashamed. My employer is a spiritualist, and my stepfather is a professional Medium, and my mother is a spiritualist. You were quite right not to speak to me last night. Quite. It was kind of you to come, but you must go back. Life is hard enough as it is ... You must go back at the end of the road. Go back at the end of the road ..."
Lewisham made no reply for a hundred yards. "I'm coming on to Clapham," he said.
They came to the end of the road in silence. Then at the kerb corner she turned and faced him. "Go back," she whispered.
"No," he said obstinately41, and they stood face to face at the cardinal42 point of their lives.
"Listen to me," said Lewisham. "It is hard to say what I feel. I don't know myself.... But I'm not going to lose you like this. I'm not going to let you slip a second time. I was awake about it all last night. I don't care where you are, what your people are, nor very much whether you've kept quite clear of this medium humbug43. I don't. You will in future. Anyhow. I've had a day and night to think it over. I had to come and try to find you. It's you. I've never forgotten you. Never. I'm not going to be sent back like this."
"It can be no good for either of us," she said as resolute44 as he.
"I shan't leave you."
"But what is the good?..."
"I'm coming," said Lewisham, dogmatically.
And he came.
He asked her a question point blank and she would not answer him, and for some way they walked in grim silence. Presently she spoke with a twitching45 mouth. "I wish you would leave me," she said. "You are quite different from what I am. You felt that last night. You helped find us out...."
"When first I came to London I used to wander about Clapham looking for you," said Lewisham, "week after week."
They had crossed the bridge and were in a narrow little street of shabby shops near Clapham Junction46 before they talked again. She kept her face averted47 and expressionless.
"I'm sorry," said Lewisham, with a sort of stiff civility, "if I seem to be forcing myself upon you. I don't want to pry48 into your affairs--if you don't wish me to. The sight of you has somehow brought back a lot of things.... I can't explain it. Perhaps--I had to come to find you--I kept on thinking of your face, of how you used to smile, how you jumped from the gate by the lock, and how we had tea ... a lot of things."
He stopped again.
"A lot of things."
"If I may come," he said, and went unanswered. They crossed the wide streets by the Junction and went on towards the Common.
"I live down this road," she said, stopping abruptly at a corner. "I would rather ..."
"But I have said nothing."
She looked at him with her face white, unable to speak for a space. "It can do no good," she said. "I am mixed up with this...."
She stopped.
He spoke deliberately. "I shall come," he said, "to-morrow night."
"No," she said.
"But I shall come."
"No," she whispered.
"I shall come." She could hide the gladness of her heart from herself no longer. She was frightened that he had come, but she was glad, and she knew he knew that she was glad. She made no further protest. She held out her hand dumbly. And on the morrow she found him awaiting her even as he had said.
收听单词发音 |
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blues
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| n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐 | |
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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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eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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mediocre
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| adj.平常的，普通的 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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meandering
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| 蜿蜒的河流，漫步，聊天 | |
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12
busts
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| 半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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nib
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| n.钢笔尖；尖头 | |
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blotting
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| 吸墨水纸 | |
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collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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monologue
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| n.长篇大论，（戏剧等中的）独白 | |
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wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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tambourine
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| n.铃鼓，手鼓 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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knuckle
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| n.指节；vi.开始努力工作；屈服，认输 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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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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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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gulping
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| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的现在分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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pry
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| vi.窥(刺)探，打听；vt.撬动(开，起) | |
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