An Event in Mr. Skellorn’s Life
i
The Lessways household, consisting of Hilda and her widowed mother, was temporarily without a servant. Hilda hated domestic work, and because she hated it she often did it passionately2 and thoroughly3. That afternoon, as she emerged from the kitchen, her dark, defiant4 face was full of grim satisfaction in the fact that she had left a kitchen polished and irreproachable5, a kitchen without the slightest indication that it ever had been or ever would be used for preparing human nature’s daily food; a show kitchen. Even the apron6 which she had worn was hung in concealment7 behind the scullery door. The lobby clock, which stood over six feet high and had to be wound up every night by hauling on a rope, was noisily getting ready to strike two. But for Mrs. Lessways’ disorderly and undesired assistance, Hilda’s task might have been finished a quarter of an hour earlier. She passed quietly up the stairs. When she was near the top, her mother’s voice, at once querulous and amiable8, came from the sitting-room9:
“Where are you going to?”
There was a pause, dramatic for both of them, and in that minute pause the very life of the house seemed for an instant to be suspended, and then the waves of the hostile love that united these two women resumed their beating, and Hilda’s lips hardened.
“Upstairs,” she answered callously10.
No reply from the sitting-room!
At two o’clock on the last Wednesday of every month, old Mr. Skellorn, employed by Mrs. Lessways to collect her cottage-rents, called with a statement of account, and cash in a linen11 bag. He was now due. During his previous visit Hilda had sought to instil12 some common sense into her mother on the subject of repairs, and there had ensued an altercation13 which had never been settled.
“If I stayed down, she wouldn’t like it,” Hilda complained fiercely within herself, “and if I keep away she doesn’t like that either! That’s mother all over!”
She went to her bedroom. And into the soft, controlled shutting of the door she put more exasperated14 vehemence15 than would have sufficed to bang it off its hinges.
ii
At this date, late October in 1878, Hilda was within a few weeks of twenty-one. She was a woman, but she could not realize that she was a woman. She remembered that when she first went to school, at the age of eight, an assistant teacher aged16 nineteen had seemed to her to be unquestionably and absolutely a woman, had seemed to belong definitely to a previous generation. The years had passed, and Hilda was now older than that mature woman was then; and yet she could not feel adult, though her childhood gleamed dimly afar off, and though the intervening expanse of ten years stretched out like a hundred years, like eternity17. She was in trouble; the trouble grew daily more and more tragic18; and the trouble was that she wanted she knew not what. If her mother had said to her squarely, “Tell me what it is will make you a bit more contented19, and you shall have it even if it kills me!” Hilda could only have answered with the fervour of despair, “I don’t know! I don’t know!”
Her mother was a creature contented enough. And why not—with a sufficient income, a comfortable home, and fair health? At the end of a day devoted20 partly to sheer vacuous21 idleness and partly to the monotonous22 simple machinery23 of physical existence—everlasting24 cookery, everlasting cleanliness, everlasting stitchery—her mother did not with a yearning25 sigh demand, “Must this sort of thing continue for ever, or will a new era dawn?” Not a bit! Mrs. Lessways went to bed in the placid26 expectancy27 of a very similar day on the morrow, and of an interminable succession of such days. The which was incomprehensible and offensive to Hilda.
She was in a prison with her mother, and saw no method of escape, saw not so much as a locked door, saw nothing but blank walls. Even could she by a miracle break prison, where should she look for the unknown object of her desire, and for what should she look? Enigmas28! It is true that she read, occasionally with feverish29 enjoyment30, especially verse. But she did not and could not read enough. Of the shelf-ful of books which in thirty years had drifted by one accident or another into the Lessways household, she had read every volume, except Cruden’s Concordance. A heterogeneous31 and forlorn assemblage! Lavater’s Physiognomy, in a translation and in full calf32! Thomson’s Seasons, which had thrilled her by its romantic beauty! Mrs. Henry Wood’s Danesbury House, and one or two novels by Charlotte M. Yonge and Dinah Maria Craik, which she had gulped33 eagerly down for the mere34 interest of their stories. Disraeli’s Ixion, which she had admired without understanding it. A History of the North American Indians! These were the more exciting items of the set. The most exciting of all was a green volume of Tennyson’s containing Maud. She knew Maud by heart. By simple unpleasant obstinacy35 she had forced her mother to give her this volume for a birthday present, having seen a quotation36 from it in a ladies’ magazine. At that date in Turnhill, as in many other towns of England, the poem had not yet lived down a reputation for immorality37; but fortunately Mrs. Lessways had only the vaguest notion of its dangerousness, and was indeed a negligent38 kind of woman. Dangerous the book was! Once in reciting it aloud in her room, Hilda had come so near to fainting that she had had to stop and lie down on the bed, until she could convince herself that she was not the male lover crying to his beloved. An astounding39 and fearful experience, and not to be too lightly renewed! For Hilda, Maud was a source of lovely and exquisite40 pain.
Why had she not used her force of character to obtain more books? One reason lay in the excessive difficulty to be faced. Birthdays are infrequent; and besides, the enterprise of purchasing Maud had proved so complicated and tedious that Mrs. Lessways, with that curious stiffness which marked her sometimes, had sworn never to attempt to buy another book. Turnhill, a town of fifteen thousand persons, had no bookseller; the only bookseller that Mrs. Lessways had ever heard of did business at Oldcastle. Mrs. Lessways had journeyed twice over the Hillport ridge41 to Oldcastle, in the odd quest of a book called Maud by “Tennyson—the poet laureate”; the book had had to be sent from London; and on her second excursion to Oldcastle Mrs. Lessways had been caught by the rain in the middle of Hillport Marsh42. No! Hilda could not easily demand the gift of another book, when all sorts of nice, really useful presents could be bought in the High Street. Nor was there in Turnhill a Municipal Library, nor any public lending-library.
Yet possibly Hilda’s terrific egoism might have got fresh books somehow from somewhere, had she really believed in the virtue43 of books. Thus far, however, books had not furnished her with what she wanted, and her faith in their promise was insecure.
Books failing, might she not have escaped into some vocation44? The sole vocation conceivable for her was that of teaching, and she knew, without having tried it, that she abhorred45 teaching. Further, there was no economical reason why she should work. In 1878, unless pushed by necessity, no girl might dream of a vocation: the idea was monstrous46; it was almost unmentionable. Still further, she had no wish to work for work’s sake. Marriage remained. But she felt herself a child, ages short of marriage. And she never met a man. It was literally47 a fact that, except Mr. Skellorn, a few tradesmen, the vicar, the curate, and a sidesman or so, she never even spoke48 to a man from one month’s end to the next. The Church choir49 had its annual dance, to which she was invited; but the perverse50 creature cared not for dancing. Her mother did not seek society, did not appear to require it. Nor did Hilda acutely feel the lack of it. She could not define her need. All she knew was that youth, moment by moment, was dropping down inexorably behind her. And, still a child in heart and soul, she saw herself ageing, and then aged, and then withered51. Her twenty-first birthday was well above the horizon. Soon, soon, she would be ‘over twenty-one’! And she was not yet born! That was it! She was not yet born! If the passionate1 strength of desire could have done the miracle time would have stood still in the heavens while Hilda sought the way of life.
And withal she was not wholly unhappy. Just as her attitude to her mother was self-contradictory, so was her attitude towards existence. Sometimes this profound infelicity of hers changed its hues52 for an instant, and lo! it was bliss53 that she was bathed in. A phenomenon which disconcerted her! She did not know that she had the most precious of all faculties54, the power to feel intensely.
iii
Mr. Skellorn did not come; he was most definitely late.
From the window of her bedroom, at the front of the house, Hilda looked westwards up toward the slopes of Chatterley Wood, where as a child she used to go with other children to pick the sparse55 bluebells56 that thrived on smoke. The bailiwick of Turnhill lay behind her; and all the murky57 district of the Five Towns, of which Turnhill is the northern outpost, lay to the south. At the foot of Chatterley Wood the canal wound in large curves on its way towards the undefiled plains of Cheshire and the sea. On the canal-side, exactly opposite to Hilda’s window, was a flour-mill, that sometimes made nearly as much smoke as the kilns58 and chimneys closing the prospect59 on either hand. From the flour-mill a bricked path, which separated a considerable row of new cottages from their appurtenant gardens, led straight into Lessways Street, in front of Mrs. Lessways’ house. By this path Mr. Skellorn should have arrived, for he inhabited the farthest of the cottages.
Hilda held Mr. Skellorn in disdain60, as she held the row of cottages in disdain. It seemed to her that Mr. Skellorn and the cottages mysteriously resembled each other in their primness61, their smugness, their detestable self-complacency. Yet those cottages, perhaps thirty in all, had stood for a great deal until Hilda, glancing at them, shattered them with her scorn. The row was called Freehold Villas62: a consciously proud name in a district where much of the land was copyhold and could only change owners subject to the payment of ‘fines’ and to the feudal63 consent of a ‘court’ presided over by the agent of a lord of the manor64. Most of the dwellings65 were owned by their occupiers, who, each an absolute monarch66 of the soil, niggled in his sooty garden of an evening amid the flutter of drying shirts and towels. Freehold Villas symbolized67 the final triumph of Victorian economics, the apotheosis68 of the prudent69 and industrious70 artisan. It corresponded with a Building Society Secretary’s dream of paradise. And indeed it was a very real achievement. Nevertheless Hilda’s irrational71 contempt would not admit this. She saw in Freehold Villas nothing but narrowness (what long narrow strips of gardens, and what narrow homes all flattened72 together!), and uniformity, and brickiness, and polished brassiness, and righteousness, and an eternal laundry.
From the upper floor of her own home she gazed destructively down upon all that, and into the chill, crimson73 eye of the descending75 sun. Her own home was not ideal, but it was better than all that. It was one of the two middle houses of a detached terrace of four houses built by her grandfather Lessways, the teapot manufacturer; it was the chief of the four, obviously the habitation of the proprietor76 of the terrace. One of the corner houses comprised a grocer’s shop, and this house had been robbed of its just proportion of garden so that the seigneurial garden-plot might be triflingly77 larger than the others. The terrace was not a terrace of cottages, but of houses rated at from twenty-six to thirty-six pounds a year; beyond the means of artisans and petty insurance agents and rent-collectors. And further, it was well built, generously built; and its architecture, though debased, showed some faint traces of Georgian amenity78. It was admittedly the best row of houses in that newly settled quarter of the town. In coming to it out of Freehold Villas Mr. Skellorn obviously came to something superior, wider, more liberal.
Suddenly Hilda heard her mother’s voice, in a rather startled conversational79 tone, and then another woman speaking; then the voices died away. Mrs. Lessways had evidently opened the back door to somebody, and taken her at once into the sitting-room. The occurrence was unusual. Hilda went softly out on to the landing and listened, but she could catch nothing more than a faint, irregular murmur80. Scarcely had she stationed herself on the landing when her mother burst out of the sitting-room, and called loudly:
“Hilda!” And again in an instant, very impatiently and excitedly, long before Hilda could possibly have appeared in response, had she been in her bedroom, as her mother supposed her to be: “Hilda!”
Hilda could see without being seen. Mrs. Lessways’ thin, wrinkled face, bordered by her untidy but still black and glossy81 hair, was upturned from below in an expression of tragic fretfulness. It was the uncontrolled face, shamelessly expressive82, of one who thinks himself unwatched. Hilda moved silently to descend74, and then demanded in a low tone whose harsh self-possession was a reproof83 to that volatile84 creature, her mother:
“What’s the matter?”
Mrs. Lessways gave a surprised “Oh!” and like a flash her features changed in the attempt to appear calm and collected.
“I was just coming downstairs,” said Hilda. And to herself: “She’s always trying to pretend I’m nobody, but when the least thing happens out of the way, she runs to me for all the world like a child.” And as Mrs. Lessways offered no reply, but simply stood at the foot of the stairs, she asked again: “What is it?”
“Well,” said her mother lamentably85. “It’s Mr. Skellorn. Here’s Mrs. Grant—”
“Who’s Mrs. Grant?” Hilda inquired, with a touch of scorn, although she knew perfectly86 well that Mr. Skellorn had a married daughter of that name.
“Hsh! Hsh!” Mrs. Lessways protested, indicating the open door of the sitting-room. “You know Mrs. Grant! It seems Mr. Skellorn has had a paralytic87 stroke. Isn’t it terrible?”
Hilda continued smoothly88 to descend the stairs, and followed her mother into the sitting-room.
收听单词发音 |
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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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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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irreproachable
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| adj.不可指责的，无过失的 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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callously
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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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instil
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| v.逐渐灌输 | |
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altercation
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| n.争吵，争论 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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vacuous
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| adj.空的，漫散的，无聊的，愚蠢的 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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expectancy
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| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
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enigmas
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| n.难于理解的问题、人、物、情况等，奥秘( enigma的名词复数 ) | |
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feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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heterogeneous
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| adj.庞杂的；异类的 | |
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calf
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| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
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gulped
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| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的过去式和过去分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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immorality
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| n. 不道德, 无道义 | |
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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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astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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abhorred
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| v.憎恶( abhor的过去式和过去分词 )；（厌恶地）回避；拒绝；淘汰 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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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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choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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51
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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52
hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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sparse
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| adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的 | |
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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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murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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kilns
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| n.窑( kiln的名词复数 )；烧窑工人 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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primness
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| n.循规蹈矩，整洁 | |
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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symbolized
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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apotheosis
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| n.神圣之理想；美化；颂扬 | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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74
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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77
triflingly
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| 微不足道的； 轻浮的； 无聊的； 懒散的 | |
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amenity
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| n.pl.生活福利设施，文娱康乐场所；（不可数）愉快，适意 | |
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conversational
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| adj.对话的，会话的 | |
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80
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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81
glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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82
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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83
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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84
volatile
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| adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质 | |
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85
lamentably
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| adv.哀伤地，拙劣地 | |
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86
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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87
paralytic
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| adj. 瘫痪的 n. 瘫痪病人 | |
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88
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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