In Aunt Becky’s mind, the time could not be far off when the odd sort of relations existing between the Belmont family and Mr. Dangerfield must be defined. The Croesus himself, indeed, was very indulgent. He was assiduous and respectful; but he wisely abstained1 from pressing for an immediate2 decision, and trusted to reflection and to Aunt Becky’s good offices; and knew that his gold would operate by its own slow, but sure, gravitation.
At one time he had made up his mind to be peremptory3 — and politely to demand an unequivocal ‘yes,’ or ‘no.’ But a letter reached him from London; it was from a great physician there. Whatever was in it, the effect was to relieve his mind of an anxiety. He never, indeed, looked anxious, or moped like an ordinary man in blue-devils. But his servants knew when anything weighed upon his spirits, by his fierce, short, maniacal4 temper. But with the seal of that letter the spell broke, the evil spirit departed for a while, and the old jocose5, laconic6 irony7 came back, and glittered whitely in the tall chair by the fire, and sipped8 its claret after dinner, and sometimes smoked its long pipe and grinned into the embers of the grate. At Belmont, there had been a skirmish over the broiled9 drum-sticks at supper, and the ladies had withdrawn10 in towering passions to their nightly devotions and repose12.
Gertrude had of late grown more like herself, but was quite resolute13 against the Dangerfield alliance, which Aunt Becky fought for, the more desperately14 that in their private confidences under the poplar trees she had given the rich cynic of the silver spectacles good assurance of success.
Puddock drank tea at Belmont — nectar in Olympus — that evening. Was ever lieutenant15 so devoutly16 romantic? He had grown more fanatical and abject17 in his worship. He spoke18 less, and lisped in very low tones. He sighed often, and sometimes mightily19; and ogled20 unhappily, and smiled lackadaisically21. The beautiful damsel was, in her high, cold way, kind to the guest, and employed him about the room on little commissions, and listened to his speeches without hearing them, and rewarded them now and then with the gleam of a smile, which made his gallant22 little heart flutter up to his solitaire, and his honest powdered head giddy.
‘I marvel23, brother,’ ejaculated Aunt Becky, suddenly, appearing in the parlour, where the general had made himself comfortable over his novel, and opening her address with a smart stamp on the floor. The veteran’s heart made a little jump, and he looked up over his gold spectacles.
‘I marvel, brother, what you can mean, desire, or intend, by all this ogling24, sighing, and love-making; ’tis surely a strange way of forwarding Mr. Dangerfield’s affair.’
He might have blustered25 a little, as he sometimes did, for she had startled him, and her manner was irritating; but she had caught him in a sentimental26 passage between Lovelace and Miss Harlowe, which always moved him — and he showed no fight at all; but his innocent little light blue eyes looked up wonderingly and quite gently at her.
‘Who — I? What ogling, Sister Becky?’
‘You! tut! That foolish, ungrateful person, Lieutenant Puddock; what can you propose to yourself, brother, in bringing Lieutenant Puddock here? I hate him.’
‘Why, what about Puddock — what has he done?’ asked the general, with round eyes still, and closing his book on his finger.
‘What has he done! Why, he’s at your daughter’s feet,’ cried Aunt Becky, with scarlet27 cheeks, and flashing eyes; ‘and she — artful gipsy, has brought him there by positively28 making love to him.’
‘Sweet upon Toodie (the general’s old pet name for Gertrude); why, half the young fellows are — you know — pooh, pooh,’ and the general stood up with his back to the fire — looking uneasy; for, like many other men, he thought a woman’s eyes saw further in such a case than his.
‘Do you wish the young hussy — do you — to marry Lieutenant Puddock? I should not wonder! Why, of course, her fortune you and she may give away to whom you like; but remember, she’s young, and has been much admired, brother; and may make a great match; and in our day, young ladies were under direction, and did not marry without apprising29 their parents or natural guardians30. Here’s Mr. Dangerfield, who proposes great settlements. Why won’t she have him? For my part, I think we’re little better than cheats; and I mean to write tomorrow morning and tell the poor gentleman that you and I have been bamboozling31 him to a purpose, and meant all along to marry the vixen to a poor lieutenant in your corps32. Speak truth, and shame the devil, brother; for my part, I’m sick of the affair; I’m sick of deception33, ingratitude34, and odious35 fools.
Aunt Becky had vanished in a little whirlwind, leaving the general with his back to the fire, looking blank and uncomfortable. And from his little silver tankard he poured out a glassful of his mulled claret, not thinking, and smelled to it deliberately36, as he used to do when he was tasting a new wine, and looked through it, and set the glass down, forgetting he was to drink it, for his thoughts were elsewhere.
On reaching her bed-room, which she did with impetuous haste, Aunt Becky shut the door with a passionate37 slam, and said, with a sort of choke and a sob38, ‘There’s nought39 but ingratitude on earth — the odious, odious, odious person!’
And when, ten minutes after, her maid came in, she found Aunt Rebecca but little advanced in her preparations for bed; and her summons at the door was answered by a fierce and shrilly40 nose-trumpeting, and a stern ‘Come in, hussy — are you deaf, child?’ And when she came in, Aunt Becky was grim, and fussy41, and her eyes red.
Miss Gertrude was that night arrived just on that dim and delicious plateau — that debatable land upon which the last waking reverie and the first dream of slumber42 mingle43 together in airy dance and shifting colours — when, on a sudden, she was recalled to a consciousness of her grave bed-posts, and damask curtains, by the voice of her aunt.
Sitting up, she gazed on the redoubted Aunt Becky through the lace of her bonnet44 de nuit, for some seconds, in a mystified and incredulous way.
Mistress Rebecca Chattesworth, on the other hand, had drawn11 the curtains, and stood, candle in hand, arrayed in her night-dress, like a ghost, only she had on a pink and green quilted dressing-gown loosely over it.
She was tall and erect45, of course; but she looked softened46 and strange; and when she spoke, it was in quite a gentle, humble47 sort of way, which was perfectly48 strange to her niece.
‘Don’t be frightened, sweetheart,’ said she, and she leaned over and with her arm round her neck, kissed her. ‘I came to say a word, and just to ask you a question. I wish, indeed I do — Heaven knows, to do my duty; and, my dear child, will you tell me the whole truth — will you tell me truly?— You will, when I ask it as a kindness.’
There was a little pause, and Gertrude looked with a pale gaze upon her aunt.
‘Are you,’ said Aunt Becky —‘do you, Gertrude — do you like Lieutenant Puddock?’
‘Lieutenant Puddock!’ repeated the girl, with the look and gesture of a person in whose ear something strange has buzzed.
‘Because, if you really are in love with him, Gertie; and that he likes you; and that, in short —’ Aunt Becky was speaking very rapidly, but stopped suddenly.
‘In love with Lieutenant Puddock!’ was all that Miss Gertrude said.
‘Now, do tell me, Gertrude, if it be so — tell me, dear love. I know ’tis a hard thing to say,’ and Aunt Becky considerately began to fiddle49 with the ribbon at the back of her niece’s nightcap, so that she need not look in her face; ‘but, Gertie, tell me truly, do you like him; and — and — why, if it be so, I will mention Mr. Dangerfield’s suit no more. There now — there’s all I want to say.’
‘Lieutenant Puddock!’ repeated young Madam in the nightcap; and by this time the film of slumber was gone; and the suspicion struck her somehow in altogether so comical a way that she could not help laughing in her aunt’s sad, earnest face.
‘Fat, funny little Lieutenant Puddock!— was ever so diverting a disgrace? Oh! dear aunt, what have I done to deserve so prodigious50 a suspicion?’
It was plain, from her heightened colour, that her aunt did not choose to be laughed at.
‘What have you done?’ said she, quite briskly; ‘why — what have you done?’ and Aunt Becky had to consider just for a second or two, staring straight at the young lady through the crimson51 damask curtains. ‘You have — you — you — why, what have you done? and she covered her confusion by stooping down to adjust the heel of her slipper52.
‘Oh! it’s delightful53 — plump little Lieutenant Puddock!’ and the graver her aunt looked the more irrepressibly she laughed; till that lady, evidently much offended, took the young gentlewoman pretty roundly to task.
‘Well! I’ll tell you what you have done,’ said she, almost fiercely. ‘As absurd as he is, you have been twice as sweet upon him as he upon you; and you have done your endeavour to fill his brain with the notion that you are in love with him, young lady; and if you’re not, you have acted, I promise you, a most unscrupulous and unpardonable part by a most honourable54 and well-bred gentleman — for that character I believe he bears. Yes — you may laugh, Madam, how you please; but he’s allowed, I say, to be as honest, as true, as fine a gentleman as — as —’
‘As ever surprised a weaver,’ said the young lady, laughing till she almost cried. In fact, she was showing in a new light, and becoming quite a funny character upon this theme. And, indeed, this sort of convulsion of laughing seemed so unaccountable on natural grounds to Aunt Rebecca, that her irritation55 subsided56 into perplexity, and she began to suspect that her extravagant57 merriment might mean possibly something which she did not quite understand.
‘Well, niece, when you have quite done laughing at nothing, you will, perhaps, be so good as to hear me. I put it to you now, young lady, as your relation and your friend, once for all, upon your sacred honour — remember you’re a Chattesworth — upon the honour of a Chattesworth’ (a favourite family form of adjuration58 on serious occasions with Aunt Rebecca), ‘do you like Lieutenant Puddock?’
It was now Miss Gertrude’s turn to be nettled59, and to remind her visitor, by a sudden flush in her cheek and a flash from her eyes, that she was, indeed, a Chattesworth; and with more disdain60 than, perhaps, was quite called for, she repelled61 the soft suspicion.
‘I protest, Madam,’ said Miss Gertrude, ‘’tis too bad. Truly, Madam, it is vastly vexatious to have to answer so strange and affronting62 a question. If you ever took the trouble, aunt, to listen to, or look at, Lieutenant Puddock, you might —’
‘Well, niece,’ quoth Aunt Becky, interrupting, with a little toss of her head, ‘young ladies weren’t quite so hard to please in my time, and I can’t see or hear that he’s so much worse than others.’
‘I’d sooner die than have him,’ said Miss Gertie, peremptorily63.
‘Then, I suppose, if ever, and whenever he asks you the question himself, you’ll have no hesitation64 in telling him so?’ said Aunt Becky, with becoming solemnity.
‘Laughable, ridiculous, comical, and absurd, as I always thought and believed Lieutenant Puddock to be, I yet believe the asking such a question of me to be a stretch of absurdity65, from which his breeding, for he is a gentleman, will restrain him. Besides, Madam, you can’t possibly be aware of the subjects on which he has invariably discoursed66 whenever he happened to sit by me — plays and players, and candied fruit. Really, Madam, it is too absurd to have to enter upon one’s defence against so incredible an imagination.’
Aunt Rebecca looked steadily67 for a few seconds in her niece’s face, then drew a long breath, and leaning over, kissed her again on the forehead, and with a grave little nod, and looking on her again for a short space, without saying a word more, she turned suddenly and left the room.
Miss Gertrude’s vexation again gave way to merriment; and her aunt, as she walked sad and stately up stairs, heard one peal68 of merry laughter after another ring through her niece’s bed-room. She had not laughed so much for three years before; and this short visit cost her, I am sure, two hours’ good sleep at least.
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1
abstained
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| v.戒（尤指酒），戒除( abstain的过去式和过去分词 )；弃权（不投票） | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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maniacal
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| adj.发疯的 | |
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jocose
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| adj.开玩笑的，滑稽的 | |
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laconic
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| adj.简洁的；精练的 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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broiled
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| a.烤过的 | |
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withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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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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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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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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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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devoutly
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| adv.虔诚地，虔敬地，衷心地 | |
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abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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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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mightily
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| ad.强烈地；非常地 | |
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ogled
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| v.（向…）抛媚眼，送秋波( ogle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lackadaisically
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| adv.无精打采地，不决断地，不热心地 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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24
ogling
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| v.（向…）抛媚眼，送秋波( ogle的现在分词 ) | |
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25
blustered
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| v.外强中干的威吓( bluster的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮；（风）呼啸；狂吹 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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apprising
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| v.告知，通知( apprise的现在分词 )；评价 | |
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guardians
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| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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31
bamboozling
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| v.欺骗，使迷惑( bamboozle的现在分词 ) | |
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corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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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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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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39
nought
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| n.／adj.无，零 | |
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shrilly
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| 尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的 | |
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41
fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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42
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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43
mingle
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| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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45
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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46
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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47
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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48
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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49
fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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50
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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51
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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52
slipper
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| n.拖鞋 | |
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53
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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54
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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55
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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56
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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57
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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58
adjuration
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| n.祈求，命令 | |
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59
nettled
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| v.拿荨麻打，拿荨麻刺（nettle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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60
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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61
repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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62
affronting
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| v.勇敢地面对( affront的现在分词 )；相遇 | |
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peremptorily
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| adv.紧急地，不容分说地，专横地 | |
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64
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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65
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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66
discoursed
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| 演说（discourse的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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67
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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68
peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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