NUMBER Five was near the centre of the row of little suburban1 houses called Redburn Road.
When the cab drew up at the door Mr. Vimpany himself was visible, looking out of the window on the ground floor — and yawning as he looked. Iris2 beckoned3 to him impatiently. “Anything wrong?” he asked, as he approached the door of the cab. She drew back, and silently showed him what was wrong. The doctor received the shock with composure. When he happened to be sober and sad, looking for patients and failing to find them, Mr. Vimpany’s capacity for feeling sympathy began and ended with himself.
“This is a new scrape, even for Lord Harry4,” he remarked. “Let’s get him into the house.”
The insensible man was carried into the nearest room on the ground floor. Pale and trembling, Iris related what had happened, and asked if there was no hope of saving him.
“Patience!” Mr. Vimpany answered; “I’ll tell you directly.”
He removed the bandages, and examined the wound. “There’s been a deal of blood lost,” he said; “I’ll try and pull him through. While I am about it, Miss, go upstairs, if you please, and find your way to the drawing-room.” Iris hesitated. The doctor opened a neat mahogany box. “The tools of my trade,” he continued; “I’m going to sew up his lordship’s throat.” Shuddering5 as she heard those words, Iris hurried out of the room. Fanny followed her mistress up the stairs. In her own very different way, the maid was as impenetrably composed as Mr. Vimpany himself. “There was a second letter found in the gentleman’s pocket, Miss,” she said. “Will you excuse my reminding you that you have not read it yet.”
Iris read the lines that follow:
“Forgive me, my dear, for the last time. My letter is to say that I shall trouble you no more in this world — and, as for the other world, who knows? I brought some money back with me, from the goldfields. It was not enough to be called a fortune — I mean the sort of fortune which might persuade your father to let you marry me. Well! here in England, I had an opportunity of making ten times more of it on the turf; and, let me add, with private information of the horses which I might certainly count on to win. I don’t stop to ask by what cruel roguery I was tempted6 to my ruin. My money is lost; and, with it, my last hope of a happy and harmless life with you comes to an end. I die, Iris dear, with the death of that hope. Something in me seems to shrink from suicide in the ugly gloom of great overgrown London. I prefer to make away with myself among the fields, where the green will remind me of dear old Ireland. When you think of me sometimes, say to yourself the poor wretch7 loved me — and perhaps the earth will lie lighter8 on Harry for those kind words, and the flowers (if you favour me by planting a few) may grow prettier on my grave.”
There it ended.
The heart of Iris sank as she read that melancholy9 farewell, expressed in language at once wild and childish. If he survived his desperate attempt at self-destruction, to what end would it lead? In silence, the woman who loved him put his letter back in her bosom10. Watching her attentively11 — affected12, it was impossible to say how, by that mute distress13 — Fanny Mere14 proposed to go downstairs, and ask once more what hope there might be for the wounded man. Iris knew the doctor too well to let the maid leave her on a useless errand.
“Some men might be kindly15 ready to relieve my suspense,” she said; “the man downstairs is not one of them. I must wait till he comes to me, or sends for me. But there is something I wish to say to you, while we are alone. You have been but a short time in my service, Fanny. Is it too soon to ask if you feel some interest in me?”
“If I can comfort you or help you, Miss, be pleased to tell me how.” She made that reply respectfully, in her usual quiet manner; her pale cheeks showing no change of colour, her faint blue eyes resting steadily16 on her mistress’s face. Iris went on:
“If I ask you to keep what has happened, on this dreadful day, a secret from everybody, may I trust you — little as you know of me — as I might have trusted Rhoda Bennet?”
“I promise it, Miss.” In saying those few words, the undemonstrative woman seemed to think that she had said enough.
Iris had no alternative but to ask another favour.
“And whatever curiosity you may feel, will you be content to do me a kindness — without wanting an explanation?”
“It is my duty to respect my mistress’s secrets; I will do my duty.” No sentiment, no offer of respectful sympathy; a positive declaration of fidelity17, left impenetrably to speak for itself. Was the girl’s heart hardened by the disaster which had darkened her life? Or was she the submissive victim of that inbred reserve, which shrinks from the frank expression of feeling, and lives and dies self-imprisoned in its own secrecy18? A third explanation, founded probably on a steadier basis, was suggested by Miss Henley’s remembrance of their first interview. Fanny’s nature had revealed a sensitive side, when she was first encouraged to hope for a refuge from ruin followed perhaps by starvation and death. Judging so far from experience, a sound conclusion seemed to follow. When circumstances strongly excited the girl, there was a dormant19 vitality20 in her that revived. At other times when events failed to agitate21 her by a direct appeal to personal interests, her constitutional reserve held the rule. She could be impenetrably honest, steadily industrious22, truly grateful — but the intuitive expression of feeling, on ordinary occasions, was beyond her reach.
After an interval23 of nearly half an hour, Mr. Vimpany made his appearance. Pausing in the doorway24, he consulted his watch, and entered on a calculation which presented him favourably25 from a professional point of view.
“Allow for time lost in reviving my lord when he fainted, and stringing him up with a drop of brandy, and washing my hands (look how clean they are!), I haven’t been more than twenty minutes in mending his throat. Not bad surgery, Miss Henley.”
“Is his life safe, Mr. Vimpany?”
“Thanks to his luck — yes.”
“His luck?”
“To be sure! In the first place, he owes his life to your finding him when you did; a little later, and it would have been all over with Lord Harry. Second piece of luck: catching26 the doctor at home, just when he was most wanted. Third piece of luck: our friend didn’t know how to cut his own throat properly. You needn’t look black at me, Miss; I’m not joking. A suicide with a razor in his hand has generally one chance in his favour — he is ignorant of anatomy27. That is my lord’s case. He has only cut through the upper fleshy part of his throat, and has missed the larger blood vessels28. Take my word for it, he will do well enough now; thanks to you, thanks to me, and thanks to his own ignorance. What do you say to that way of putting it? Ha! my brains are in good working order to-day; I haven’t been drinking any of Mr. Mountjoy’s claret — do you take the joke, Miss Henley?”
Chuckling29 over the recollection of his own drunken audacity30, he happened to notice Fanny Mere.
“Hullo! is this another injured person in want of me? You’re as white as a sheet, Miss. If you’re going to faint, do me a favour — wait till I can get the brandy-bottle. Oh! it’s natural to you, is it? I see. A thick skin and a slow circulation; you will live to be an old woman. A friend of yours, Miss Henley?”
Fanny answered composedly for herself: “I am Miss Henley’s maid, sir.”
“What’s become of the other one?” Mr. Vimpany asked. “Aye? aye? Staying at a farm-house for the benefit of her health, is she? If I had been allowed time enough, I would have made a cure of Rhoda Bennet. There isn’t a medical man in England who knows more than I do of the nervous maladies of women — and what is my reward? Is my waiting-room crammed31 with rich people coming to consult me? Do I live in a fashionable Square? Have I even been made a Baronet? Damn it — I beg your pardon, Miss Henley — but it is irritating, to a man of my capacity, to be completely neglected. For the last three days not a creature has darkened the doors of this house. Could I say a word to you?”
He led Iris mysteriously into a corner of the room. “About our friend downstairs?” he began.
“When may we hope that he will be well again, Mr. Vimpany?”
“Maybe in three weeks. In a month at most. I have nobody here but a stupid servant girl. We ought to have a competent nurse. I can get a thoroughly32 trained person from the hospital; but there’s a little difficulty. I am an outspoken33 man. When I am poor, I own I am poor. My lord must be well fed; the nurse must be well fed. Would you mind advancing a small loan, to provide beforehand for the payment of expenses?”
Iris handed her purse to him, sick of the sight of Mr. Vimpany. “Is that all?” she asked, making for the door.
“Much obliged. That’s all.”
As they approached the room on the ground floor, Iris stopped: her eyes rested on the doctor. Even to that coarse creature, the eloquent35 look spoke34 for her. Fanny noticed it, and suddenly turned her head aside. Over the maid’s white face there passed darkly an expression of unutterable contempt. Her mistress’s weakness had revealed itself — weakness for one of the betrayers of women; weakness for a man! In the meantime, Mr. Vimpany (having got the money) was ready to humour the enviable young lady with a well-filled purse.
“Do you want to see my lord before you go?” he asked, amused at the idea. “Mind! you mustn’t disturb him! No talking, and no crying. Ready? Now look at him.”
There he lay on a shabby little sofa, in an ugly little room; his eyes closed; one helpless hand hanging down; a stillness on his ghastly face, horribly suggestive of the stillness of death — there he lay, the reckless victim of his love for the woman who had desperately36 renounced37 him again and again, who had now saved him for the third time. Ah, how her treacherous38 heart pleaded for him! Can you drive him away from you after this? You, who love him, what does your cold-blooded prudence39 say, when you look at him now?
She felt herself drawn40, roughly and suddenly, back into the passage. The door was closed; the doctor was whispering to her. “Hold up, Miss! I expected better things of you. Come! come!— no fainting. You’ll find him a different man to-morrow. Pay us a visit, and judge for yourself.”
After what she had suffered, Iris hungered for sympathy. “Isn’t it pitiable?” she said to her maid as they left the house.
“I don’t know, Miss.”
“You don’t know? Good heavens, are you made of stone? Have you no such thing as a heart in you?”
“Not for the men,” Fanny answered. “I keep my pity for the women.”
Iris knew what bitter remembrances made their confession41 in those words. How she missed Rhoda Bennet at that moment!
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suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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iris
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| n.虹膜，彩虹 | |
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beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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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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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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attentively
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| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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agitate
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| vi.(for,against)煽动，鼓动；vt.搅动 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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favourably
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| adv. 善意地，赞成地 =favorably | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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anatomy
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| n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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31
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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outspoken
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| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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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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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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renounced
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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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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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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