Mary Postgate
(1915)
Of Miss Mary Postgate, Lady McCausland wrote that she was ‘thoroughly conscientious1, tidy, companionable, and ladylike. I am very sorry to part with her, and shall always be interested in her welfare.’
Miss Fowler engaged her on this recommendation, and to her surprise, for she had had experience of companions, found that it was true. Miss Fowler was nearer sixty than fifty at the time, but though she needed care she did not exhaust her attendant’s vitality3. On the contrary, she gave out, stimulatingly4 and with reminiscences. Her father had been a minor5 Court official in the days when the Great Exhibition of 1851 had just set its seal on Civilisation6 made perfect. Some of Miss Fowler’s tales, none the less, were not always for the young. Mary was not young, and though her speech was as colourless as her eyes or her hair, she was never shocked. She listened unflinchingly to every one; said at the end, ‘How interesting!’ or ‘How shocking!’ as the case might be, and never again referred to it, for she prided herself on a trained mind, which ‘did not dwell on these things.’ She was, too, a treasure at domestic accounts, for which the village tradesmen, with their weekly books, loved her not. Otherwise she had no enemies; provoked no jealousy7 even among the plainest; neither gossip nor slander8 had ever been traced to her; she supplied the odd place at the Rector’s or the Doctor’s table at half an hour’s notice; she was a sort of public aunt to very many small children of the village street, whose parents, while accepting everything, would have been swift to resent what they called ‘patronage’; she served on the Village Nursing Committee as Miss Fowler’s nominee9 when Miss Fowler was crippled by rheumatoid arthritis10, and came out of six months’ fortnightly meetings equally respected by all the cliques11.
And when Fate threw Miss Fowler’s nephew, an unlovely orphan12 of eleven, on Miss Fowler’s hands, Mary Postgate stood to her share of the business of education as practised in private and public schools. She checked printed clothes-lists, and unitemised bills of extras; wrote to Head and House masters, matrons, nurses and doctors, and grieved or rejoiced over half-term reports. Young Wyndham Fowler repaid her in his holidays by calling her ‘Gatepost,’ ‘Postey,’ or ‘Packthread,’ by thumping13 her between her narrow shoulders, or by chasing her bleating14, round the garden, her large mouth open, her large nose high in air, at a stiff-necked shamble very like a camel’s. Later on he filled the house with clamour, argument, and harangues15 as to his personal needs, likes and dislikes, and the limitations of ‘you women,’ reducing Mary to tears of physical fatigue16, or, when he chose to be humorous, of helpless laughter. At crises, which multiplied as he grew older, she was his ambassadress and his interpretress to Miss Fowler, who had no large sympathy with the young; a vote in his interest at the councils on his future; his sewing-woman, strictly17 accountable for mislaid boots and garments; always his butt18 and his slave.
And when he decided19 to become a solicitor20, and had entered an office in London; when his greeting had changed from ‘Hullo, Postey, you old beast,’ to Mornin’, Packthread,’ there came a war which, unlike all wars that Mary could remember, did not stay decently outside England and in the newspapers, but intruded21 on the lives of people whom she knew. As she said to Miss Fowler, it was ‘most vexatious.’ It took the Rector’s son who was going into business with his elder brother; it took the Colonel’s nephew on the eve of fruit-farming in Canada; it took Mrs. Grant’s son who, his mother said, was devoted22 to the ministry23; and, very early indeed, it took Wynn Fowler, who announced on a postcard that he had joined the Flying Corps24 and wanted a cardigan waistcoat.
‘He must go, and he must have the waistcoat,’ said Miss Fowler. So Mary got the proper-sized needles and wool, while Miss Fowler told the men of her establishment — two gardeners and an odd man, aged2 sixty — that those who could join the Army had better do so. The gardeners left. Cheape, the odd man, stayed on, and was promoted to the gardener’s cottage. The cook, scorning to be limited in luxuries, also left, after a spirited scene with Miss Fowler, and took the housemaid with her. Miss Fowler gazetted Nellie, Cheape’s seventeen-year-old daughter, to the vacant post; Mrs. Cheape to the rank of cook, with occasional cleaning bouts25; and the reduced establishment moved forward smoothly26.
Wynn demanded an increase in his allowance. Miss Fowler, who always looked facts in the face, said, ‘He must have it. The chances are he won’t live long to draw it, and if three hundred makes him happy —’
Wynn was grateful, and came over, in his tight-buttoned uniform, to say so. His training centre was not thirty miles away, and his talk was so technical that it had to be explained by charts of the various types of machines. He gave Mary such a chart.
‘And you’d better study it, Postey,’ he said. ‘You’ll be seeing a lot of ’em soon.’ So Mary studied the chart, but when Wynn next arrived to swell28 and exalt29 himself before his womenfolk, she failed badly in cross-examination, and he rated her as in the old days.
‘You look more or less like a human being,’ he said in his new Service voice. ‘You must have had a brain at some time in your past. What have you done with it? Where d’you keep it? A sheep would know more than you do, Postey. You’re lamentable30. You are less use than an empty tin can, you dowey old cassowary.’
‘I suppose that’s how your superior officer talks to you?’ said Miss Fowler from her chair.
‘But Postey doesn’t mind,’ Wynn replied. ‘Do you, Packthread?’
‘Why? Was Wynn saying anything? I shall get this right next time you come,’ she muttered, and knitted her pale brows again over the diagrams of Taubes, Farmans, and Zeppelins.
In a few weeks the mere31 land and sea battles which she read to Miss Fowler after breakfast passed her like idle breath. Her heart and her interest were high in the air with Wynn, who had finished ‘rolling’ (whatever that might be) and had gone on from a ‘taxi’ to a machine more or less his own. One morning it circled over their very chimneys, alighted on Vegg’s Heath, almost outside the garden gate, and Wynn came in, blue with cold, shouting for food. He and she drew Miss Fowler’s bath-chair, as they had often done, along the Heath foot-path to look at the bi-plane. Mary observed that ‘it smelt32 very badly.’
‘Postey, I believe you think with your nose,’ said Wynn. ‘I know you don’t with your mind. Now, what type’s that?’
‘I’ll go and get the chart,’ said Mary.
‘You’re hopeless! You haven’t the mental capacity of a white mouse,’ he cried, and explained the dials and the sockets33 for bomb-dropping till it was time to mount and ride the wet clouds once more.
‘Ah!’ said Mary, as the stinking34 thing flared35 upward. ‘Wait till our Flying Corps gets to work! Wynn says it’s much safer than in the trenches36.’
‘I wonder,’ said Miss Fowler. ‘Tell Cheape to come and tow me home again.’
‘It’s all downhill. I can do it,’ said Mary, ‘if you put the brake on.’ She laid her lean self against the pushing-bar and home they trundled.
‘Now, be careful you aren’t heated and catch a chill,’ said overdressed Miss Fowler.
‘Nothing makes me perspire,’ said Mary. As she bumped the chair under the porch she straightened her long back. The exertion37 had given her a colour, and the wind had loosened a wisp of hair across her forehead. Miss Fowler glanced at her.
‘What do you ever think of, Mary?’ she demanded suddenly.
‘Oh, Wynn says he wants another three pairs of stockings — as thick as we can make them.’
‘Yes. But I mean the things that women think about. Here you are, more than forty —’
‘Forty-four,’ said truthful38 Mary.
‘Well?’
‘Well?’ Mary offered Miss Fowler her shoulder as usual.
‘And you’ve been with me ten years now.’
‘Let’s see,’ said Mary. ‘Wynn was eleven when he came. He’s twenty now, and I came two years before that. It must be eleven.’
‘Eleven! And you’ve never told me anything that matters in all that while. Looking back, it seems to me that I’ve done all the talking.’
‘I’m afraid I’m not much of a conversationalist. As Wynn says, I haven’t the mind. Let me take your hat.’
Miss Fowler, moving stiffly from the hip39, stamped her rubber-tipped stick on the tiled hall floor. ‘Mary, aren’t you anything except a companion? Would you ever have been anything except a companion?’
Mary hung up the garden hat on its proper peg40. ‘No,’ she said after consideration. ‘I don’t imagine I ever should. But I’ve no imagination, I’m afraid.’
She fetched Miss Fowler her eleven-o’clock glass of Contrexéville.
That was the wet December when it rained six inches to the month, and the women went abroad as little as might be. Wynn’s flying chariot visited them several times, and for two mornings (he had warned her by postcard) Mary heard the thresh of his propellers41 at dawn. The second time she ran to the window, and stared at the whitening sky. A little blur42 passed overhead. She lifted her lean arms towards it.
That evening at six o’clock there came an announcement in an official envelope that Second Lieutenant43 W. Fowler had been killed during a trial flight. Death was instantaneous. She read it and carried it to Miss Fowler.
‘I never expected anything else,’ said Miss Fowler; ‘but I’m sorry it happened before he had done anything.’
The room was whirling round Mary Postgate, but she found herself quite steady in the midst of it.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s a great pity he didn’t die in action after he had killed somebody.’
‘He was killed instantly. That’s one comfort,’ Miss Fowler went on.
‘But Wynn says the shock of a fall kills a man at once — whatever happens to the tanks,’ quoted Mary.
The room was coming to rest now. She heard Miss Fowler say impatiently, ‘But why can’t we cry, Mary?’ and herself replying, ‘There’s nothing to cry for. He has done his duty as much as Mrs. Grant’s son did.’
‘And when he died, she came and cried all the morning,’ said Miss Fowler. ‘This only makes me feel tired — terribly tired. Will you help me to bed, please, Mary?— And I think I’d like the hot-water bottle.’
So Mary helped her and sat beside, talking of Wynn in his riotous44 youth.
‘I believe,’ said Miss Fowler suddenly, ‘that old people and young people slip from under a stroke like this. The middle-aged45 feel it most.’
‘I expect that’s true,’ said Mary, rising. ‘I’m going to put away the things in his room now. Shall we wear mourning?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Miss Fowler. ‘Except, of course, at the funeral. I can’t go. You will. I want you to arrange about his being buried here. What a blessing46 it didn’t happen at Salisbury!’
Every one, from the Authorities of the Flying Corps to the Rector, was most kind and sympathetic. Mary found herself for the moment in a world where bodies were in the habit of being despatched by all sorts of conveyances47 to all sorts of places. And at the funeral two young men in buttoned-up uniforms stood beside the grave and spoke48 to her afterwards.
‘You’re Miss Postgate, aren’t you?’ said one. ‘Fowler told me about you. He was a good chap — a first-class fellow — a great loss.’
‘Great loss!’ growled49 his companion. ‘We’re all awfully50 sorry.’
‘How high did he fall from?’ Mary whispered.
‘Pretty nearly four thousand feet, I should think, didn’t he? You were up that day, Monkey?’
‘All of that,’ the other child replied. ‘My bar made three thousand, and I wasn’t as high as him by a lot.’
‘Then that’s all right,’ said Mary. ‘Thank you very much.’
They moved away as Mrs. Grant flung herself weeping on Mary’s flat chest, under the lych-gate, and cried, ‘I know how it feels! I know how it feels!’
‘But both his parents are dead,’ Mary returned, as she fended51 her off. ‘Perhaps they’ve all met by now,’ she added vaguely52 as she escaped towards the coach.
‘I’ve thought of that too,’ wailed53 Mrs. Grant; ‘but then he’ll be practically a stranger to them. Quite embarrassing!’
Mary faithfully reported every detail of the ceremony to Miss Fowler, who, when she described Mrs. Grant’s outburst, laughed aloud.
‘Oh, how Wynn would have enjoyed it! He was always utterly55 unreliable at funerals. D’you remember —’ And they talked of him again, each piecing out the other’s gaps. ‘And now,’ said Miss Fowler, ‘we’ll pull up the blinds and we’ll have a general tidy. That always does us good. Have you seen to Wynn’s things?’
‘Everything — since he first came,’ said Mary. ‘He was never destructive — even with his toys.’
They faced that neat room.
‘It can’t be natural not to cry,’ Mary said at last. ‘I’m so afraid you’ll have a reaction.’
‘As I told you, we old people slip from under the stroke. It’s you I’m afraid for. Have you cried yet?’
‘I can’t. It only makes me angry with the Germans.’
‘That’s sheer waste of vitality,’ said Miss Fowler. ‘We must live till the war’s finished.’ She opened a full wardrobe. ‘Now, I’ve been thinking things over. This is my plan. All his civilian56 clothes can be given away — Belgian refugees, and so on.’
Mary nodded. ‘Boots, collars, and gloves?’
‘Yes. We don’t need to keep anything except his cap and belt.’
‘They came back yesterday with his Flying Corps clothes’— Mary pointed57 to a roll on the little iron bed.
‘Ah, but keep his Service things. Some one may be glad of them later. Do you remember his sizes?’
‘Five feet eight and a half; thirty-six inches round the chest. But he told me he’s just put on an inch and a half. I’ll mark it on a label and tie it on his sleeping-bag.’
‘So that disposes of that,’ said Miss Fowler, tapping the palm of one hand with the ringed third finger of the other. ‘What waste it all is! We’ll get his old school trunk tomorrow and pack his civilian clothes.’
‘And the rest?’ said Mary. ‘His books and pictures and the games and the toys — and — and the rest?’
‘My plan is to burn every single thing,’ said Miss Fowler. ‘Then we shall know where they are and no one can handle them afterwards. What do you think?’
‘I think that would be much the best,’ said Mary. ‘But there’s such a lot of them.’
‘We’ll burn them in the destructor,’ said Miss Fowler.
This was an open-air furnace for the consumption of refuse; a little circular four-foot tower of pierced brick over an iron grating. Miss Fowler had noticed the design in a gardening journal years ago, and had had it built at the bottom of the garden. It suited her tidy soul, for it saved unsightly rubbish-heaps, and the ashes lightened the stiff clay soil.
Mary considered for a moment, saw her way clear, and nodded again. They spent the evening putting away well-remembered civilian suits, underclothes that Mary had marked, and the regiments58 of very gaudy59 socks and ties. A second trunk was needed, and, after that, a little packing-case, and it was late next day when Cheape and the local carrier lifted them to the cart. The Rector luckily knew of a friend’s son, about five feet eight and a half inches high, to whom a complete Flying Corps outfit60 would be most acceptable, and sent his gardener’s son down with a barrow to take delivery of it. The cap was hung up in Miss Fowler’s bedroom, the belt in Miss Postgate’s; for, as Miss Fowler said, they had no desire to make tea-party talk of them.
‘That disposes of that,’ said Miss Fowler. ‘I’ll leave the rest to you, Mary. I can’t run up and down the garden. You’d better take the big clothes-basket and get Nellie to help you.’
‘I shall take the wheel-barrow and do it myself,’ said Mary, and for once in her life closed her mouth.
Miss Fowler, in moments of irritation61, had called Mary deadly methodical. She put on her oldest waterproof62 and gardening-hat and her ever-slipping goloshes, for the weather was on the edge of more rain. She gathered fire-lighters from the kitchen, a half-scuttle of coals, and a faggot of brushwood. These she wheeled in the barrow down the mossed paths to the dank little laurel shrubbery where the destructor stood under the drip of three oaks. She climbed the wire fence into the Rector’s glebe just behind, and from his tenant’s rick pulled two large armfuls of good hay, which she spread neatly63 on the fire-bars. Next, journey by journey, passing Miss Fowler’s white face at the morning-room window each time, she brought down in the towel-covered clothes-basket, on the wheel-barrow, thumbed and used Hentys, Marryats, Levers, Stevensons, Baroness64 Orczys, Garvices, schoolbooks, and atlases65, unrelated piles of the Motor Cyclist, the Light Car, and catalogues of Olympia Exhibitions; the remnants of a fleet of sailing-ships from ninepenny cutters to a three-guinea yacht; a prep.-school dressing-gown; bats from three-and-sixpence to twenty-four shillings; cricket and tennis balls; disintegrated66 steam and clockwork locomotives with their twisted rails; a grey and red tin model of a submarine; a dumb gramophone and cracked records; golf-clubs that had to be broken across the knee, like his walking-sticks, and an assegai; photographs of private and public school cricket and football elevens, and his O.T.C. on the line of march; kodaks, and film-rolls; some pewters, and one real silver cup, for boxing competitions and Junior Hurdles67; sheaves of school photographs; Miss Fowler’s photograph; her own which he had borne off in fun and (good care she took not to ask!) had never returned; a playbox with a secret drawer; a load of flannels68, belts, and jerseys69, and a pair of spiked70 shoes unearthed71 in the attic72; a packet of all the letters that Miss Fowler and she had ever written to him, kept for some absurd reason through all these years; a five-day attempt at a diary; framed pictures of racing73 motors in full Brooklands career, and load upon load of undistinguishable wreckage74 of tool-boxes, rabbit-hutches, electric batteries, tin soldiers, fret-saw outfits75, and jig-saw puzzles.
Miss Fowler at the window watched her come and go, and said to herself, ‘Mary’s an old woman. I never realised it before.’
After lunch she recommended her to rest.
‘I’m not in the least tired,’ said Mary. ‘I’ve got it all arranged. I’m going to the village at two o’clock for some paraffin. Nellie hasn’t enough, and the walk will do me good.’
She made one last quest round the house before she started, and found that she had overlooked nothing. It began to mist as soon as she had skirted Vegg’s Heath, where Wynn used to descend76 — it seemed to her that she could almost hear the beat of his propellers overhead, but there was nothing to see. She hoisted77 her umbrella and lunged into the blind wet till she had reached the shelter of the empty village. As she came out of Mr. Kidd’s shop with a bottle full of paraffin in her string shopping-bag, she met Nurse Eden, the village nurse, and fell into talk with her, as usual, about the village children. They were just parting opposite the ‘Royal Oak,’ when a gun, they fancied, was fired immediately behind the house. It was followed by a child’s shriek79 dying into a wail54.
‘Accident!’ said Nurse Eden promptly80, and dashed through the empty bar, followed by Mary. They found Mrs. Gerritt, the publican’s wife, who could only gasp81 and point to the yard, where a little cart-lodge was sliding sideways amid a clatter82 of tiles. Nurse Eden snatched up a sheet drying before the fire, ran out, lifted something from the ground, and flung the sheet round it. The sheet turned scarlet83 and half her uniform too, as she bore the load into the kitchen. It was little Edna Gerritt, aged nine, whom Mary had known since her perambulator days.
‘Am I hurted bad?’ Edna asked, and died between Nurse Eden’s dripping hands. The sheet fell aside and for an instant, before she could shut her eyes, Mary saw the ripped and shredded84 body.
‘It’s a wonder she spoke at all,’ said Nurse Eden. ‘What in God’s name was it?’
‘A bomb,’ said Mary.
‘One o’ the Zeppelins?’
‘No. An aeroplane. I thought I heard it on the Heath, but I fancied it was one of ours. It must have shut off its engines as it came down. That’s why we didn’t notice it.’
‘The filthy85 pigs!’ said Nurse Eden, all white and shaken. ‘See the pickle86 I’m in! Go and tell Dr. Hennis, Miss Postgate.’ Nurse looked at the mother, who had dropped face down on the floor. ‘She’s only in a fit. Turn her over.’
Mary heaved Mrs. Gerritt right side up, and hurried off for the doctor. When she told her tale, he asked her to sit down in the surgery till he got her something.
‘But I don’t need it, I assure you,’ said she. ‘I don’t think it would be wise to tell Miss Fowler about it, do you? Her heart is so irritable87 in this weather.’
Dr. Hennis looked at her admiringly as he packed up his bag.
‘No. Don’t tell anybody till we’re sure,’ he said, and hastened to the ‘Royal Oak,’ while Mary went on with the paraffin. The village behind her was as quiet as usual, for the news had not yet spread. She frowned a little to herself, her large nostrils88 expanded uglily, and from time to time she muttered a phrase which Wynn, who never restrained himself before his womenfolk, had applied89 to the enemy. ‘Bloody90 pagans! They are bloody pagans. But,’ she continued, falling back on the teaching that had made her what she was, ‘one mustn’t let one’s mind dwell on these things.’
Before she reached the house Dr. Hennis, who was also a special constable91, overtook her in his car.
‘Oh, Miss Postgate,’ he said, ‘I wanted to tell you that that accident at the “Royal Oak” was due to Gerritt’s stable tumbling down. It’s been dangerous for a long time. It ought to have been condemned92.’
‘I thought I heard an explosion too,’ said Mary.
‘You might have been misled by the beams snapping. I’ve been looking at ’em. They were dry-rotted through and through. Of course, as they broke, they would make a noise just like a gun.’
‘Yes?’ said Mary politely.
‘Poor little Edna was playing underneath93 it,’ he went on, still holding her with his eyes, ‘and that and the tiles cut her to pieces, you see?’
‘I saw it,’ said Mary, shaking her head. ‘I heard it too.’
‘Well, we cannot be sure.’ Dr. Hennis changed his tone completely. ‘I know both you and Nurse Eden (I’ve been speaking to her) are perfectly94 trustworthy, and I can rely on you not to say anything — yet at least. It is no good to stir up people unless —’
‘Oh, I never do — anyhow,’ said Mary, and Dr. Hennis went on to the county town.
After all, she told herself, it might, just possibly, have been the collapse95 of the old stable that had done all those things to poor little Edna. She was sorry she had even hinted at other things, but Nurse Eden was discretion96 itself. By the time she reached home the affair seemed increasingly remote by its very monstrosity. As she came in, Miss Fowler told her that a couple of aeroplanes had passed half an hour ago.
‘I thought I heard them,’ she replied, ‘I’m going down to the garden now. I’ve got the paraffin.’
‘Yes, but — what have you got on your boots? They’re soaking wet. Change them at once.’
Not only did Mary obey but she wrapped the boots in a newspaper, and put them into the string bag with the bottle. So, armed with the longest kitchen poker97, she left.
‘It’s raining again,’ was Miss Fowler’s last word, ‘but — I know you won’t be happy till that’s disposed of.’
‘It won’t take long. I’ve got everything down there, and I’ve put the lid on the destructor to keep the wet out.’
The shrubbery was filling with twilight98 by the time she had completed her arrangements and sprinkled the sacrificial oil. As she lit the match that would burn her heart to ashes, she heard a groan99 or a grunt100 behind the dense101 Portugal laurels102.
‘Cheape?’ she called impatiently, but Cheape, with his ancient lumbago, in his comfortable cottage would be the last man to profane103 the sanctuary104. ‘Sheep,’ she concluded, and threw in the fusee. The pyre went up in a roar, and the immediate78 flame hastened night around her.
‘How Wynn would have loved this!’ she thought, stepping back from the blaze.
By its light she saw, half hidden behind a laurel not five paces away, a bareheaded man sitting very stiffly at the foot of one of the oaks. A broken branch lay across his lap — one booted leg protruding105 from beneath it. His head moved ceaselessly from side to side, but his body was as still as the tree’s trunk. He was dressed — she moved sideways to look more closely — in a uniform something like Wynn’s, with a flap buttoned across the chest. For an instant, she had some idea that it might be one of the young flying men she had met at the funeral. But their heads were dark and glossy106. This man’s was as pale as a baby’s, and so closely cropped that she could see the disgusting pinky skin beneath. His lips moved.
‘What do you say?’ Mary moved towards him and stooped.
‘Laty! Laty! Laty!’ he muttered, while his hands picked at the dead wet leaves. There was no doubt as to his nationality. It made her so angry that she strode back to the destructor, though it was still too hot to use the poker there. Wynn’s books seemed to be catching107 well. She looked up at the oak behind the man; several of the light upper and two or three rotten lower branches had broken and scattered108 their rubbish on the shrubbery path. On the lowest fork a helmet with dependent strings109, showed like a bird’s-nest in the light of a long-tongued flame. Evidently this person had fallen through the tree. Wynn had told her that it was quite possible for people to fall out of aeroplanes. Wynn told her too, that trees were useful things to break an aviator110’s fall, but in this case the aviator must have been broken or he would have moved from his queer position. He seemed helpless except for his horrible rolling head. On the other hand, she could see a pistol case at his belt — and Mary loathed111 pistols. Months ago, after reading certain Belgian reports together, she and Miss Fowler had had dealings with one — a huge revolver with flat-nosed bullets, which latter, Wynn said, were forbidden by the rules of war to be used against civilised enemies. ‘They’re good enough for us,’ Miss Fowler had replied. ‘Show Mary how it works.’ And Wynn, laughing at the mere possibility of any such need, had led the craven winking112 Mary into the Rector’s disused quarry113, and had shown her how to fire the terrible machine. It lay now in the top-left-hand drawer of her toilet-table — a memento114 not included in the burning. Wynn would be pleased to see how she was not afraid.
She slipped up to the house to get it. When she came through the rain, the eyes in the head were alive with expectation. The mouth even tried to smile. But at sight of the revolver its corners went down just like Edna Gerritt’s. A tear trickled115 from one eye, and the head rolled from shoulder to shoulder as though trying to point out something.
‘Cassée. Tout116 cassée,’ it whimpered.
‘What do you say?’ said Mary disgustedly, keeping well to one side, though only the head moved.
‘Cassée,’ it repeated. ‘Che me rends117. Le médicin! Toctor!’
‘Nein!’ said she, bringing all her small German to bear with the big pistol. ‘Ich haben der todt Kinder gesehn.’
The head was still. Mary’s hand dropped. She had been careful to keep her finger off the trigger for fear of accidents. After a few moments’ waiting, she returned to the destructor, where the flames were falling, and churned up Wynn’s charring books with the poker. Again the head groaned118 for the doctor.
‘Stop that!’ said Mary, and stamped her foot. ‘Stop that, you bloody pagan!’
The words came quite smoothly and naturally. They were Wynn’s own words, and Wynn was a gentleman who for no consideration on earth would have torn little Edna into those vividly119 coloured strips and strings. But this thing hunched120 under the oak-tree had done that thing. It was no question of reading horrors out of newspapers to Miss Fowler. Mary had seen it with her own eyes on the ‘Royal Oak’ kitchen table. She must not allow her mind to dwell upon it. Now Wynn was dead, and everything connected with him was lumping and rustling121 and tinkling122 under her busy poker into red black dust and grey leaves of ash. The thing beneath the oak would die too. Mary had seen death more than once. She came of a family that had a knack123 of dying under, as she told Miss Fowler, ‘most distressing124 circumstances.’ She would stay where she was till she was entirely125 satisfied that It was dead — dead as dear papa in the late ‘eighties; aunt Mary in eighty-nine; mamma in ‘ninety-one; cousin Dick in ninety-five; Lady McCausland’s housemaid in ‘ninety-nine; Lady McCausland’s sister in nineteen hundred and one; Wynn buried five days ago; and Edna Gerritt still waiting for decent earth to hide her. As she thought — her underlip caught up by one faded canine126, brows knit and nostrils wide — she wielded127 the poker with lunges that jarred the grating at the bottom, and careful scrapes round the brick-work above. She looked at her wrist-watch. It was getting on to half-past four, and the rain was coming down in earnest. Tea would be at five. If It did not die before that time, she would be soaked and would have to change. Meantime, and this occupied her, Wynn’s things were burning well in spite of the hissing128 wet, though now and again a book-back with a quite distinguishable title would be heaved up out of the mass. The exercise of stoking had given her a glow which seemed to reach to the marrow129 of her bones. She hummed — Mary never had a voice — to herself. She had never believed in all those advanced views — though Miss Fowler herself leaned a little that way — of woman’s work in the world; but now she saw there was much to be said for them. This, for instance, was her work — work which no man, least of all Dr. Hennis, would ever have done. A man, at such a crisis, would be what Wynn called a ‘sportsman’; would leave everything to fetch help, and would certainly bring It into the house. Now a woman’s business was to make a happy home for — for a husband and children. Failing these — it was not a thing one should allow one’s mind to dwell upon — but —
‘Stop it!’ Mary cried once more across the shadows. ‘Nein, I tell you! Ich haben der todt Kinder gesehn.’
But it was a fact. A woman who had missed these things could still be useful — more useful than a man in certain respects. She thumped130 like a pavior through the settling ashes at the secret thrill of it. The rain was damping the fire, but she could feel — it was too dark to see — that her work was done. There was a dull red glow at the bottom of the destructor, not enough to char27 the wooden lid if she slipped it half over against the driving wet. This arranged, she leaned on the poker and waited, while an increasing rapture131 laid hold on her. She ceased to think. She gave herself up to feel. Her long pleasure was broken by a sound that she had waited for in agony several times in her life. She leaned forward and listened, smiling. There could be no mistake. She closed her eyes and drank it in. Once it ceased abruptly132.
‘Go on,’ she murmured, half aloud. ‘That isn’t the end.’
Then the end came very distinctly in a lull133 between two rain-gusts. Mary Postgate drew her breath short between her teeth and shivered from head to foot. ‘That’s all right,’ said she contentedly134, and went up to the house, where she scandalised the whole routine by taking a luxurious135 hot bath before tea, and came down looking, as Miss Fowler said when she saw her lying all relaxed on the other sofa, ‘quite handsome!’
收听单词发音 |
1
conscientious
|
|
| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
aged
|
|
| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
vitality
|
|
| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
stimulatingly
|
|
| adj.刺激的，有刺激性的v.刺激( stimulate的现在分词 )；激励；使兴奋；起兴奋作用，起刺激作用，起促进作用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
minor
|
|
| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
civilisation
|
|
| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
jealousy
|
|
| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
slander
|
|
| n./v.诽谤，污蔑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
nominee
|
|
| n.被提名者；被任命者；被推荐者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
arthritis
|
|
| n.关节炎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
cliques
|
|
| n.小集团，小圈子，派系( clique的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
orphan
|
|
| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
thumping
|
|
| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
bleating
|
|
| v.（羊，小牛）叫( bleat的现在分词 )；哭诉；发出羊叫似的声音；轻声诉说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
harangues
|
|
| n.高谈阔论的长篇演讲( harangue的名词复数 )v.高谈阔论( harangue的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
fatigue
|
|
| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
strictly
|
|
| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
butt
|
|
| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
solicitor
|
|
| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
intruded
|
|
| n.侵入的，推进的v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的过去式和过去分词 )；把…强加于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
ministry
|
|
| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
corps
|
|
| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
bouts
|
|
| n.拳击（或摔跤）比赛( bout的名词复数 )；一段（工作）；（尤指坏事的）一通；（疾病的）发作 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
smoothly
|
|
| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
char
|
|
| v.烧焦；使...燃烧成焦炭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
swell
|
|
| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
exalt
|
|
| v.赞扬，歌颂，晋升，提升 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
lamentable
|
|
| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
smelt
|
|
| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
sockets
|
|
| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
stinking
|
|
| adj.臭的，烂醉的，讨厌的v.散发出恶臭( stink的现在分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
Flared
|
|
| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
trenches
|
|
| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
exertion
|
|
| n.尽力，努力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
truthful
|
|
| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
hip
|
|
| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
peg
|
|
| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
propellers
|
|
| n.螺旋桨，推进器( propeller的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
blur
|
|
| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
lieutenant
|
|
| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
riotous
|
|
| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
middle-aged
|
|
| adj.中年的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
blessing
|
|
| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
conveyances
|
|
| n.传送( conveyance的名词复数 )；运送；表达；运输工具 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
growled
|
|
| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
awfully
|
|
| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
fended
|
|
| v.独立生活，照料自己( fend的过去式和过去分词 )；挡开，避开 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
wailed
|
|
| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
wail
|
|
| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
civilian
|
|
| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
regiments
|
|
| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
gaudy
|
|
| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
outfit
|
|
| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
irritation
|
|
| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
waterproof
|
|
| n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
neatly
|
|
| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
baroness
|
|
| n.男爵夫人，女男爵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
atlases
|
|
| 地图集( atlas的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
disintegrated
|
|
| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
hurdles
|
|
| n.障碍( hurdle的名词复数 )；跳栏；（供人或马跳跃的）栏架；跨栏赛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
flannels
|
|
| 法兰绒男裤； 法兰绒( flannel的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
jerseys
|
|
| n.运动衫( jersey的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
spiked
|
|
| adj.有穗的；成锥形的；有尖顶的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
unearthed
|
|
| 出土的（考古） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
attic
|
|
| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
racing
|
|
| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
wreckage
|
|
| n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
outfits
|
|
| n.全套装备( outfit的名词复数 )；一套服装；集体；组织v.装备，配置设备，供给服装( outfit的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
descend
|
|
| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
hoisted
|
|
| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
shriek
|
|
| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
promptly
|
|
| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
gasp
|
|
| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
clatter
|
|
| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
scarlet
|
|
| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
shredded
|
|
| shred的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
filthy
|
|
| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
pickle
|
|
| n.腌汁，泡菜；v.腌，泡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
irritable
|
|
| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
nostrils
|
|
| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
applied
|
|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
bloody
|
|
| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
constable
|
|
| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
condemned
|
|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
underneath
|
|
| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
collapse
|
|
| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
discretion
|
|
| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
poker
|
|
| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
twilight
|
|
| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
groan
|
|
| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
grunt
|
|
| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
dense
|
|
| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
laurels
|
|
| n.桂冠，荣誉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
profane
|
|
| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
sanctuary
|
|
| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
protruding
|
|
| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
glossy
|
|
| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
catching
|
|
| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
scattered
|
|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
strings
|
|
| n.弦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
aviator
|
|
| n.飞行家，飞行员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
loathed
|
|
| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
winking
|
|
| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
quarry
|
|
| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
memento
|
|
| n.纪念品，令人回忆的东西 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
trickled
|
|
| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
tout
|
|
| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
rends
|
|
| v.撕碎( rend的第三人称单数 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
groaned
|
|
| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
vividly
|
|
| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
hunched
|
|
| （常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
rustling
|
|
| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
tinkling
|
|
| n.丁当作响声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
knack
|
|
| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
distressing
|
|
| a.使人痛苦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
canine
|
|
| adj.犬的，犬科的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
wielded
|
|
| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
hissing
|
|
| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
marrow
|
|
| n.骨髓；精华；活力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
thumped
|
|
| v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
rapture
|
|
| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
abruptly
|
|
| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
lull
|
|
| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
contentedly
|
|
| adv.心满意足地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
luxurious
|
|
| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |