And now Mr. Polly began to lead a divided life. With the Johnsons he professed1 to be inclined, but not so conclusively2 inclined as to be inconvenient3, to get a shop for himself, to be, to use the phrase he preferred, “looking for an opening.” He would ride off in the afternoon upon that research, remarking that he was going to “cast a strategetical eye” on Chertsey or Weybridge. But if not all roads, still a great majority of them, led by however devious4 ways to Stamton, and to laughter and increasing familiarity. Relations developed with Annie and Minnie and Miriam. Their various characters were increasingly interesting. The laughter became perceptibly less abundant, something of the fizz had gone from the first opening, still these visits remained wonderfully friendly and upholding. Then back he would come to grave but evasive discussions with Johnson.
Johnson was really anxious to get Mr. Polly “into something.” His was a reserved honest character, and he would really have preferred to see his lodger5 doing things for himself than receive his money for housekeeping. He hated waste, anybody’s waste, much more than he desired profit. But Mrs. Johnson was all for Mr. Polly’s loitering. She seemed much the more human and likeable of the two to Mr. Polly.
He tried at times to work up enthusiasm for the various avenues to well-being6 his discussion with Johnson opened. But they remained disheartening prospects7. He imagined himself wonderfully smartened up, acquiring style and value in a London shop, but the picture was stiff and unconvincing. He tried to rouse himself to enthusiasm by the idea of his property increasing by leaps and bounds, by twenty pounds a year or so, let us say, each year, in a well-placed little shop, the corner shop Johnson favoured. There was a certain picturesque8 interest in imagining cut-throat economies, but his heart told him there would be little in practising them.
And then it happened to Mr. Polly that real Romance came out of dreamland into life, and intoxicated9 and gladdened him with sweetly beautiful suggestions — and left him. She came and left him as that dear lady leaves so many of us, alas10! not sparing him one jot11 or one tittle of the hollowness of her retreating aspect.
It was all the more to Mr. Polly’s taste that the thing should happen as things happen in books.
In a resolute12 attempt not to get to Stamton that day, he had turned due southward from Easewood towards a country where the abundance of bracken jungles, lady’s smock, stitchwork, bluebells13 and grassy14 stretches by the wayside under shady trees does much to compensate15 the lighter16 type of mind for the absence of promising17 “openings.” He turned aside from the road, wheeled his machine along a faintly marked attractive trail through bracken until he came to a heap of logs against a high old stone wall with a damaged coping and wallflower plants already gone to seed. He sat down, balanced the straw hat on a convenient lump of wood, lit a cigarette, and abandoned himself to agreeable musings and the friendly observation of a cheerful little brown and grey bird his stillness presently encouraged to approach him. “This is All Right,” said Mr. Polly softly to the little brown and grey bird. “Business — later.”
He reflected that he might go on this way for four or five years, and then be scarcely worse off than he had been in his father’s lifetime.
“Vile Business,” said Mr. Polly.
Then Romance appeared. Or to be exact, Romance became audible.
Romance began as a series of small but increasingly vigorous movements on the other side of the wall, then as a voice murmuring, then as a falling of little fragments on the hither side and as ten pink finger tips, scarcely apprehended18 before Romance became startling and emphatically a leg, remained for a time a fine, slender, actively19 struggling limb, brown stockinged and wearing a brown toe-worn shoe, and then —. A handsome red-haired girl wearing a short dress of blue linen20 was sitting astride the wall, panting, considerably21 disarranged by her climbing, and as yet unaware22 of Mr. Polly. . . .
His fine instincts made him turn his head away and assume an attitude of negligent23 contemplation, with his ears and mind alive to every sound behind him.
“Goodness!” said a voice with a sharp note of surprise.
Mr. Polly was on his feet in an instant. “Dear me! Can I be of any assistance?” he said with deferential24 gallantry.
“I don’t know,” said the young lady, and regarded him calmly with clear blue eyes.
“I didn’t know there was anyone here,” she added.
“Sorry,” said Mr. Polly, “if I am intrudaceous. I didn’t know you didn’t want me to be here.”
She reflected for a moment on the word. “It isn’t that,” she said, surveying him.
“I oughtn’t to get over the wall,” she explained. “It’s out of bounds. At least in term time. But this being holidays —”
Her manner placed the matter before him.
“Holidays is different,” said Mr. Polly.
“I don’t want to actually break the rules,” she said.
“Leave them behind you,” said Mr. Polly with a catch of the breath, “where they are safe”; and marvelling25 at his own wit and daring, and indeed trembling within himself, he held out a hand for her.
She brought another brown leg from the unknown, and arranged her skirt with a dexterity26 altogether feminine. “I think I’ll stay on the wall,” she decided27. “So long as some of me’s in bounds —”
She continued to regard him with eyes that presently joined dancing in an irresistible28 smile of satisfaction. Mr. Polly smiled in return.
“You bicycle?” she said.
Mr. Polly admitted the fact, and she said she did too.
“All my people are in India,” she explained. “It’s beastly rot — I mean it’s frightfully dull being left here alone.”
“All my people,” said Mr. Polly, “are in Heaven!”
“I say!”
“Fact!” said Mr. Polly. “Got nobody.”
“And that’s why —” she checked her artless comment on his mourning. “I say,” she said in a sympathetic voice, “I am sorry. I really am. Was it a fire or a ship — or something?”
Her sympathy was very delightful29. He shook his head. “The ordinary table of mortality,” he said. “First one and then another.”
Behind his outward melancholy30, delight was dancing wildly. “Are you lonely?” asked the girl.
Mr. Polly nodded.
“I was just sitting there in melancholy rectrospectatiousness,” he said, indicating the logs, and again a swift thoughtfulness swept across her face.
“There’s no harm in our talking,” she reflected.
“It’s a kindness. Won’t you get down?”
She reflected, and surveyed the turf below and the scene around and him.
“I’ll stay on the wall,” she said. “If only for bounds’ sake.”
She certainly looked quite adorable on the wall. She had a fine neck and pointed31 chin that was particularly admirable from below, and pretty eyes and fine eyebrows32 are never so pretty as when they look down upon one. But no calculation of that sort, thank Heaven, was going on beneath her ruddy shock of hair.
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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conclusively
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| adv.令人信服地，确凿地 | |
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inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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lodger
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| n.寄宿人，房客 | |
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well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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jot
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| n.少量；vi.草草记下；vt.匆匆写下 | |
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resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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bluebells
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| n.圆叶风铃草( bluebell的名词复数 ) | |
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grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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compensate
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| vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消 | |
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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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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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negligent
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| adj.疏忽的；玩忽的；粗心大意的 | |
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deferential
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| adj. 敬意的，恭敬的 | |
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marvelling
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的现在分词 ) | |
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dexterity
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| n.(手的)灵巧，灵活 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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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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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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