The last gate loomed8 up through a stand of box and stringybark; the car came to a throbbing9 halt. Clapping adisreputable grey broad-brimmed hat on his head to ward11 off the sun, Father Ralph got out, plodded12 to the steelbolt on the wooden strut14, pulled it back and flung the gate open with weary impatience15. There were twenty-sevengates between the presbytery in Gillanbone and Drogheda homestead, each one meaning he had to stop, get outof the car, open the gate, get into the car and drive it through, stop, get out, go back to close the gate, then get inthe car again and proceed to the next one. Many and many a time he longed to dispense16 with at least half theritual, scoot on down the track leaving the gates open like a series of astonished mouths behind him; but even theawesome aura of his calling would not prevent the owners of the gates from tarring and feathering him for it. Hewished horses were as fast and efficient as cars, because one could open and close gates from the back of a horsewithout dismounting.
"Nothing is given without a disadvantage in it," he said, patting the dashboard of the new Daimler and startingoff down the last mile of the grassy18, treeless Home Paddock, the gate firmly bolted behind him. Even to anIrishman used to castles and mansions19, this Australian homestead was imposing20. Drogheda was the oldest andthe biggest property in the district, and had been endowed by its late doting21 owner with a fitting residence. Builtof butter-yellow sandstone blocks handhewn in quarries22 five hundred miles eastward23, the house had two storiesand was constructed on austerely24 Georgian lines, with large, many-paned windows and a wide, iron-pillaredveranda running all the way around its bottom story. Gracing the sides of every window were black woodenshutters, not merely ornamental28 but useful; in the heat of summer they were pulled closed to keep the interiorcool.
Though it was autumn now and the spindling vine was green, in spring the wistaria which had been planted theday the house was finished fifty years before was a solid mass of lilac plumes29, rioting all over the outer walls andthe veranda25 roof. Several acres of meticulously30 scythed31 lawn surrounded the house, strewn with formal gardenseven now full of color from roses, wall-flowers, dahlias and marigolds. A stand of magnificent ghost gums withpallid white trunks and drifting thin leaves hanging seventy feet above the ground shaded the house from thepitiless sun, their branches wreathed 66 in brilliant magenta37 where bougainvillea vines grew intertwined withthem. Even those indispensable Outback monstrosities the water tanks were thickly clothed in hardy39 native vines,roses and wistaria, and thus managed to look more decorative41 than functional42. Thanks to the late MichaelCarson's passion for Drogheda homestead, he had been lavish43 in the matter of water tanks; rumor44 had itDrogheda could afford to keep its lawns green and its flower beds blooming though no rain fell in ten years. Asone approached down the Home Paddock the house and its ghost gums took the eye first, but then one was awareof many other yellow sandstone houses of one story behind it and to each side, interlocking with the mainstructure by means of roofed ramps47 smothered48 in creepers. A wide gravel49 driveway succeeded the wheel ruts ofthe track, curving to a circular parking area at one side of the big house, but also continuing beyond it and out ofsight down to where the real business of Drogheda lay: the stockyards, the shearing50 shed, the barns. PrivatelyFather Ralph preferred the giant pepper trees which shaded all these outbuildings and their attendant activities tothe ghost gums of the main house. Pepper trees were dense33 with pale green fronds52 and alive with the sound ofbees, just the right lazy sort of foliage53 for an Outback station.
As Father Ralph parked his car and walked across the lawn, the maid waited on the front veranda, her freckledface wreathed in smiles. "Good morning, Minnie," he said.
"Oh, Father, happy it is to see you this fine dear mornin"," she said in her strong brogue, one hand holding thedoor wide and the other outstretched to receive his battered55, unclerical hat.
Inside the dim hall, with its marble tiles and greet brass56-railed staircase, he paused until Minnie gave him a nodbefore entering the drawing room.
Mary Carson was sitting in her wing chair by an open window which extended fifteen feet from floor to ceiling,apparently57 indifferent to the cold air flooding in. Her shock of red hair was almost as bright as it had been in heryouth; though the coarse freckled54 skin had picked up additional splotches from age, for a woman of sixty-fiveshe had few wrinkles, rather a fine network of tiny diamond-shaped cushions like a quilted bedspread. The onlyclues to her intractable nature lay in the two deep fissures58 which ran one on either side of her Roman nose, to endpulling down the corners of her mouth, and in the stony59 look of the pale-blue eyes. Father Ralph crossed theAubusson carpet silently and kissed her hands; the gesture sat well on a man as tall and graceful60 as he was,especially since he wore a plain black soutane which gave him something of a courtly air. Her expressionlesseyes suddenly coy and sparkling, Mary Carson almost simpered. "Will you have tea, Father?" she asked.
"It depends on whether you wish to hear Mass," he said, sitting down in the chair facing hers and crossing hislegs, the soutane riding up sufficiently62 to show that under it he wore breeches and knee-high boots, a concessionto the locale of his parish. "I've brought you Communion, but if you'd like to hear Mass I can be ready to say it ina very few minutes. I don't mind continuing my fast a little longer.""You're too good to me, Father," she said smugly, knowing perfectly63 well that he, along with everybody else,did homage64 not to her but to her money. "Please have tea," she went on. "I'm quite happy with Communion." Hekept his resentment65 from showing in his face; this parish had been excellent for his self-control. If once he wasoffered the chance to rise out of the obscurity his temper had landed him in, he would not again make the samemistake. And if he played his cards well, this old woman might be the answer to his prayers.
"I must confess, Father, that this past year has been very pleasant," she said. "You're a far more satisfactoryshepherd than old Father Kelly was, God rot his soul." Her voice on the last phrase was suddenly harsh,vindictive. His eyes lifted to her face, twinkling. "My dear Mrs. Carson! That's not a very Catholic sentiment.""But the truth. He was a drunken old sot, and I'm quite sure God will rot his soul as much as the drink rotted hisbody." She leaned forward. "I know you fairly well by this time; I think I'm entitled to ask you a few questions,don't you? After all, you feel free to use Drogheda as your private playground-off learning how to be a stockman,polishing your riding, escaping from the vicissitudes67 of life in Gilly. All at my invitation, of course, but I dothink I'm entitled to some answers, don't you?" He didn't like to be reminded that he ought to feel grateful, but hehad been waiting for the day when she would think she owned him enough to begin demanding things of him.
"Indeed you are, Mrs. Carson. I can't thank you enough for permitting me the run of Drogheda, and for all yourgifts-my horses, my car.""How old are you?" she asked without further preamble68. "Twenty-eight," he replied.
"Younger than I thought. Even so, they don't send priests like you to places like Gilly. What did you do, tomake them send someone like you out here into the back of beyond?""I insulted the bishop71," he said calmly, smiling. "You must have! But I can't think a priest of your peculiartalents can be happy in a place like Gillanbone.""It is God's will.""Stuff and nonsense! You're here because of human failings-your own and the bishop's. Only the Pope isinfallible. You're utterly73 out of your natural element in Gilly, we all know that, not that we're not grateful to havesomeone like you for a change, instead of the ordained74 remittance75 men they send us usually. But your naturalelement lies in some corridor of ecclesiastical power, not here among horses and sheep. You'd look magnificentin cardinal76's red.""No chance of that, I'm afraid. I fancy Gillanbone is not exactly the epicenter of the Archbishop Papal Legate'smap. And it could be worse. I have you, and I have Drogheda."She accepted the deliberately77 blatant78 flattery in the spirit in which it was intended, enjoying his beauty, hisattentiveness, his barbed and subtle mind; truly he would make a magnificent cardinal. In all her life she couldnot remember seeing a better-looking man, nor one who used his beauty in quite the same way. He had to beaware of how he looked: the height and the perfect proportions of his body, the fine aristocratic features, the wayevery physical element had been put together with a degree of care about the appearance of the finished productGod lavished79 on few of His creations. From the loose black curls of his head and the startling blue of his eyes tothe small, slender hands and feet, he was perfect. Yes, he had to be conscious of what he was. And yet there wasan aloofness80 about him, a way he had of making her feel he had never been enslaved by his beauty, nor everwould be. He would use it to get what he wanted without compunction if it would help, but not as though he wasenamored of it; rather as if he deemed people beneath contempt for being influenced by it. And she would havegiven much to know what in his past life had made him so.
Curious, how many priests were handsome as Adonis, had the sexual magnetism82 of Don Juan. Did they espousecelibacy as a refuge from the consequences? "Why do you put up with Gillanbone?" she asked. "Why not leavethe priesthood rather than put up with it? You could be rich and powerful in any one of a number of fields withyour talents, and you can't tell me the thought of power at least doesn't appeal to you."His left eyebrow84 flew up. "My dear Mrs. Carson, you're a Catholic. You know my vows85 are sacred. Until mydeath I remain a priest. I cannot deny it." She snorted with laughter. "Oh, come now! Do you really believe thatif you renounced86 your vows they'd come after you with everything from bolts of lightning to bloodhounds andshotguns?""Of course not. Nor do I believe you're stupid enough to think fear of retribution is what keeps me within thepriestly fold.""Oho! Waspish, Father de Bricassart! Then what does keep you tied? What compels you to suffer the dust, theheat and the Gilly flies? For all you know, it might be a life sentence."A shadow momentarily dimmed the blue eyes, but he smiled, pitying her. "You're a great comfort, aren't you?"His lips parted, he looked toward the ceiling and sighed. "I was brought up from my cradle to be a priest, but it'sfar more than that. How can I explain it to a woman? I am a vessel88, Mrs. Carson, and at times I'm filled withGod. If I were a better priest, there would be no periods of emptiness at all. And that filling, that oneness withGod, isn't a function of place. Whether I'm in Gillanbone or a bishop's palace, it occurs. But to define it isdifficult, because even to priests it's a great mystery. A divine possession, which other men can never know.
That's it, perhaps. Abandon it? I couldn't.""So it's a power, is it? Why should it be given to priests, then? What makes you think the mere27 smearing89 ofchrism during an exhaustingly long ceremony is able to endow any man with it?"He shook his head. "Look, it's years of life, even before getting to the point of ordination90. The carefuldevelopment of a state of mind which opens the vessel to God. It's earned! Every day it's earned. Which is thepurpose of the vows, don't you see? That no earthly things come between the priest and his state of mind--notlove of a woman, nor love of money, nor unwillingness92 to obey the dictates93 of other men. Poverty is nothing newto me; I don't come from a rich family. Cha/y I accept without finding it difficult to maintain. And obedience94?
For me, it's the hardest of the three. But I obey, because if I hold myself more important than my function as areceptacle for God, I'm lost. I obey. And if necessary, I'm willing to endure Gillanbone as a life sentence.""Then you're a fool," she said. "I, too, think that there are more important things than lovers, but being areceptacle for God isn't one of them. Odd. I never realized you believed in God so ardently95. I thought you wereperhaps a man who doubted.""I do doubt. What thinking man doesn't? That's why at times I'm empty." He looked beyond her, at somethingshe couldn't see. "Do you know, I think I'd give up every ambition, every desire in me, for the chance to be aperfect priest?""Perfection in anything," she said, "is unbearably97 dull. Myself, I prefer a touch of imperfection."He laughed, looking at her in admiration98 tinged99 with envy. She was a remarkable100 woman.
Her widowhood was thirty-three years old and her only child, a son, had died in infancy101. Because of herpeculiar status in the Gillanbone community she had not availed herself of any of the overtures102 made to her bythe more ambitious males of her acquaintance; as Michael Carson's widow she was indisputably a queen, but assomeone's wife she passed control "of all she had to that someone. Not Mary Carson's idea of living, to playsecond fiddle104. So she had abjured105 the flesh, preferring to wield7 power; it was inconceivable that she should take alover, for when it came to gossip Gillanbone was as receptive as a wire to an electrical current. To prove herselfhuman and weak was not a part of her obsession106.
But now she was old enough to be officially beyond the drives of the body. If the new young priest wasassiduous in his duties to her and she rewarded him with little gifts like a car, it was not at all incongruous. Astaunch pillar of the Church all her life, she had supported her parish and its spiritual leader in fitting fashioneven when Father Kelly had hiccupped his way through the Mass. She was not alone in feeling charitablyinclined toward Father Kelly's successor; Father Ralph de Bricassart was deservedly popular with every memberof his flock, rich or poor. If his more remote parishioners could not get into Gilly to see him, he went to them,and until Mary Carson had given him his car he had gone on horseback. His patience and kindness had broughthim liking108 from all and sincere love from some; Martin King of Bugela had expensively refurnished thepresbytery, Dominic O'Rourke of Dibban-Dibban paid the salary of a good housekeeper109.
So from the pedestal of her age and her position Mary Carson felt quite safe in enjoying Father Ralph; she likedmatching her wits against a brain as intelligent as her own, she liked outguessing him because she was never sureshe actually did outguess him.
"Getting back to what you were saying about Gilly not being the epicenter of the Archbishop Papal Legate'smap," she said, settling deeply into her chair, "what do you think would shake the reverend gentlemansufficiently to make Gilly the pivot110 of his world?"The priest smiled ruefully. "Impossible to say. A coup112 of some sort? The sudden saving of a thousand souls, asudden capacity to heal the lame113 and the blind .... But the age of miracles is past.""Oh, come now, I doubt that! It's just that He's altered His technique. These days He uses money.""What a cynic you are! Maybe that's why I like you so much, Mrs. Carson." "My name is Mary. Please call meMary."Minnie came in wheeling the tea trolley114 as Father de Bricassart said, "Thank you, Mary."Over fresh bannocks and anchovies115 on toast, Mary Carson sighed. "Dear Father, I want you to pray especiallyhard for me this morning." "Call me Ralph," he said, then went on mischievously116, "I doubt it's possible for me topray any harder for you than I normally do, but I'll try." "Oh, you're a charmer! Or was that remark innuendo117? Idon't usually care for obviousness, but with you I'm never sure if the obviousness isn't actually a cloak forsomething deeper. Like a carrot before a donkey. Just what do you really think of me, Father de Bricassart? I'llnever know, because you'll never be tactless enough to tell me, will you? Fascinating, fascinating . . . But youmust pray for me. I'm old, and I've sinned much." "Age creeps on us all, and I, too, have sinned."A dry chuckle118 escaped her. "I'd give a lot to know how you've sinned! Indeed, indeed I would." She was silentfor a moment, then changed the subject. "At this minute I'm minus a head stockman.""Again?""Five in the past year. It's getting hard to find a decent man." "Well, rumor hath it you're not exactly a generousor a considerate employer.""Oh, impudent119!" she gasped120, laughing. "Who bought you a brand-new Daimler so you wouldn't have to ride?""Ah, but look how hard I pray for you!""If Michael had only had half your wit and character, I might have loved him," she said abruptly121. Her facechanged, became spiteful. "Do you think I'm without a relative in the world and must leave my money and myland to Mother Church, is that it?""I have no idea," he said tranquilly122, pouring himself more tea.
"As a matter of fact, I have a brother with a large and thriving family of sons.""How nice for you," he said demurely123.
"When I married I was quite without worldly goods. I knew I'd never marry well in Ireland, where a woman hasto have breeding and background to catch a rich husband. So I worked my fingers to the bone to save my passagemoney to a land where the rich men aren't so fussy124. All I had when I got here were a face and a figure and abetter125 brain than women are supposed to have, and they were adequate to catch Michael Carson, who was a richfool. He doted on me until the day he died.""And your brother?" he prompted, thinking she was going off at a tangent. "My brother is eleven years youngerthan I am, which would make him fifty-four now. We're the only two still alive. I hardly know him; he was asmall child when I left Galway. At present he lives in New Zealand, though if he emigrated to make his fortunehe hasn't succeeded. "But last night when the station hand brought me the news that Arthur Teviot had packedhis traps and gone, I suddenly thought of Padraic. Here I am, not getting any younger, with no family around me.
And it occurred to me that Paddy is an experienced man of the land, without the means to own land. Why not, Ithought, write to him and ask him to bring himself and his sons here? When I die he'll inherit Drogheda andMichar Limited, as he's my only living relative closer than some unknown cousins back in Ireland." She smiled.
"It seems silly to wait, doesn't it? He might as well come now as later, get used to running sheep on the black soilplains, which I'm sure is quite different from sheep in New Zealand. Then when I'm gone he can step into myshoes without feeling the pinch." Head lowered, she watched Father Ralph closely.
"I wonder you didn't think of it earlier," he said. "Oh, I did. But until recently I thought the last thing I wantedwas a lot of vultures waiting anxiously for me to breathe my last. Only lately the day of my demise127 seems a lotcloser than it used to, and I feel . . . oh, I don't know. As if it might be nice to be surrounded by people of myown flesh and blood.""What's the matter, do you think you're ill?" he asked quickly, a real concern in his eyes.
She shrugged128. "I'm perfectly all right. Yet there's something ominous129 about turning sixty-five. Suddenly old ageis not a phenomenon which will occur; it has occurred.""I see what you mean, and you're right. It will be very pleasant for you, hearing young voices in the house.""Oh, they won't live here," she said. "They can live in the head stockman's house down by the creek130, well awayfrom me. I'm not fond of children or their voices.""Isn't that a rather shabby way to treat your only brother, Mary? Even if your ages are so disparate?""He'll inherit-let him earn it," she said crudely.
Fiona Cleary was delivered of another boy six days before Meggie's ninth birthday, counting herself luckynothing but a couple of miscarriages131 had happened in the interim132. At nine Meggie was old enough to be a realhelp. Fee herself was forty years old, too old to bear children without a great deal of strength-sapping pain. Thechild, named Harold, was a delicate baby; for the first time anyone could ever remember, the doctor cameregularly to the house.
And as troubles do, the Cleary troubles multiplied. The aftermath of the war was not a boom, but a ruraldepression. Work became increasingly harder to get.
Old Angus MacWhirter delivered a telegram to the house one day just as they were finishing tea, and Paddytore it open with trembling hands; telegrams never held good news. The boys gathered round, all save Frank,who took his cup of tea and left the table. Fee's eyes followed him, then turned back as Paddy groaned133. "What isit?" she asked.
Paddy was staring at the piece of paper as if it held news of a death. "Archibald doesn't want us."Bob pounded his fist on the table savagely134; he had been so looking forward to going with his father as anapprentice shearer136, and Archibald's was to have been his first pen. "Why should he do a dirty thing like this to us,Daddy? We were due to start there tomorrow.""He doesn't say why, Bob. I suppose some scab contractor137 undercut me." "Oh, Paddy!" Fee sighed.
Baby Hal began to cry from the big bassinet by the stove, but before Fee could move Meggie was up; Frank hadcome back inside the door and was standing139, tea in hand, watching his father narrowly. "Well, I suppose I'll haveto go and see Archibald," Paddy said at last. "It's too late now to look for another shad to replace his, but I dothink he owes me a better explanation than this. We'll just have to hope we can find work milking untilWilloughby's shed starts in July."Meggie pulled a square of white towel from the huge pile sitting by the stove warming and spread it carefullyon the work table, then lifted the crying child out of the wicker crib. The Cleary hair glittered sparsely140 on hislittle skull141 as Meggie changed his diaper swiftly, and as efficiently142 as her mother could have done.
"Little Mother Meggie," Frank said, to tease her. "I'm not!" she answered indignantly. "I'm just helping143 Mum.""I know," he said gently. "You're a good girl, wee Meggie." He tugged144 at the white taffeta bow on the back ofher head until it hung lopsided. Up came the big grey eyes to his face adoringly; over the nodding head of thebaby she might have been his own age, or older. There was a pain in his chest, that this should have fallen uponher at an age when the only baby she ought to be caring for was Agnes, now relegated146 forgotten to the bedroom.
If it wasn't for her and their mother, he would have been gone long since. He looked at his father sourly, thecause of the new life creating such chaos147 in the house. Served him right, getting done out of his shed.
Somehow the other boys and even Meggie had never intruded148 on his thoughts the way Hal did; but when Fee'swaistline began to swell149 this time, he was old enough himself to be married and a father. Everyone except littleMeggie had been uncomfortable about it, his mother especially. The furtive150 glances of the boys made her shrinklike a rabbit; she could not meet Frank's eyes or quench151 the shame in her own. Nor should any woman gothrough that, Frank said to himself for the thousandth time, remembering the horrifying153 moans and cries whichhad come from her bedroom the night Hal was born; of age now, he hadn't been packed off elsewhere like theothers. Served Daddy right, losing his shed. A decent man would have left her alone. His mother's head in thenew electric light was spun154 gold, the pure profile as she looked down the long table at Paddy unspeakablybeautiful. How had someone as lovely and refined as she married an itinerant155 shearer from the bogs156 of Galway?
Wasting herself and her Spode china, her damask table napery and her Persian rugs in the parlor157 that no one eversaw, because she didn't fit in with the wives of Paddy's peers. She made them too conscious of their vulgar loudvoices, their bewilderment when faced with more than one fork. Sometimes on a Sunday she would go into thelonely parlor, sit down at the spinet158 under the window and play, though her touch had long gone from want oftime to practice and she could no longer manage any but 78 the simplest pieces. He would sit beneath thewindow among the lilacs and the lilies, and close his eyes to listen. There was a sort of vision he had then, of hismother clad in a long bustled159 gown of palest pink shadow lace sitting at the spinet in a huge ivory room, greatbranches of candles all around her. It would make him long to weep, but he never wept anymore; not since thatnight in the barn after the police had brought him home. Meggie had put Hal back in the bassinet, and gone tostand beside her mother. There was another one wasted. The same proud, sensitive profile; something of Fionaabout her hands, her child's body. She would be very like her mother when she, too, was a woman. And whowould marry her? Another oafish160 Irish shearer, or a clodhopping yokel161 from some Wahine dairy farm? She wasworth more, but she was not born to more. There was no way out, that was what everyone said, and every yearlonger that he lived seemed to bear it out.
Suddenly conscious of his fixed162 regard, Fee and Meggie turned together, smiling at him with the peculiartenderness women save for the most beloved men in their lives. Frank put his cup on the table and went out tofeed the dogs, wishing he could weep, or commit murder. Anything which might banish163 the pain.
Three days after Paddy lost the Archibald shed, Mary Carson's letter came. He had opened it in the Wahine postoffice the moment he collected his mail, and came back to the house skipping like a child. "We're going toAustralia!" he yelled, waving the expensive vellum pages under his family's stunned164 noses.
There was silence, all eyes riveted165 on him. Fee's were shocked, so were Meggie's, but every male pair had litwith joy. Frank's blazed. "But, Paddy, why should she think of you so suddenly after all these years?" Fee askedafter she had read the letter. "Her money's not new to her, nor is her isolation166. I never remember her offering tohelp us before.""It seems she's frightened of dying alone," he said, as much to reassure167 himself as Fee. "You saw what shewrote: "I am not young, and you and your boys are my heirs. I think we ought to see each other before I die, andit's time you learned how to run your inheritance. I have the intention of making you my head stockman-it will beexcellent training, and those of your boys who are old enough to work may have employment as stockmen also.
Drogheda will become a family concern, run by the family without help from outsiders.""Does she say anything about sending us the money to get to Australia?" Fee asked.
Paddy's back stiffened168. "I wouldn't dream of dunning her for that!" he snapped. "We can get to Australiawithout begging from her; I have enough put by.""I think she ought to pay our way," Fee maintained stubbornly, and to everyone's shocked surprise; she did notoften voice an opinion. "Why should you give up your life here and go off to work for her on the strength of apromise given in a letter? She's never lifted a finger to help us before, and I don't trust her. All I ever rememberyour saying about her was that she had the tightest clutch on a pound you'd ever seen. After all, Paddy, it's not asif you know her so very well; there was such a big gap between you in age, and she went to Australia before youwere old enough to start school." "I don't see how that alters things now, and if she is tight-fisted, all the more forus to inherit. No, Fee, we're going to Australia, and we'll pay our own way there."Fee said no more. It was impossible to tell from her face whether she resented being so summarily dismissed.
"Hooray, we're going to Australia!" Bob shouted, grabbing at his father's shoulder. Jack169, Hughie and Stu 80jigged up and down, and Frank was smiling, his eyes seeing nothing in the room but something far beyond it.
Only Fee and Meggie wondered and feared, hoping painfully it would all come to nothing, for their lives couldbe no easier in Australia, just the same things under strange conditions. "Where's Gillanbone?" Stuart asked.
Out came the old atlas170; poor though the Clearys were, there were several shelves of books behind the kitchendining table. The boys pored over yellowing pages until they found New South Wales. Used to small NewZealand. distances, it didn't occur to them to consult the scale of miles in the bottom left-hand corner. They justnaturally assumed New South Wales was the same size as the North Island of New Zealand. And there wasGillanbone, up toward the top left-hand corner; about the same distance from Sydney as Wanganui was fromAuckland, it seemed, though the dots indicating towns were far fewer than on the North Island map.
"It's a very old atlas," Paddy said. "Australia is like America, growing in leaps and bounds. I'm sure there are alot more towns these days." They would have to go steerage on the ship, but it was only three days after all, nottoo bad. Not like the weeks and weeks between England and the Antipodes. All they could afford to take withthem were clothes, china, cutlery, household linens172, cooking utensils174 and those shelves of precious books; thefurniture would have to be sold to cover the cost of shipping175 Fee's few bits and pieces in the parlor, her spinetand rugs and chairs. "I won't hear of your leaving them behind," Paddy told Fee firmly. "Are you sure we canafford it?""Positive. As to the other furniture, Mary says she's readying the head stockman's house and that it's goteverything we're likely to be needing. I'm glad we don't have to live in the same house as Mary.""So am I," said Fee.
Paddy went into Wanganui to book them an eight-berth176 steerage cabin on the Wahine; strange that the ship andtheir nearest town should have the same name. They were due to sail at the end of August, so by the beginning ofthat month everyone started realizing the big adventure was actually going to happen. The dogs had to be givenaway, the horses and the buggy sold, the furniture loaded onto old Angus MacWhirter's dray and taken intoWanganui for auction177, Fee's few pieces crated178 along with the china and linen173 and books and kitchen goods.
Frank found his mother standing by the beautiful old spinet, stroking its faintly pink, streaky paneling andlooking vaguely179 at the powdering of gold dust on her fingertips.
"Did you always have it, Mum?" he asked.
"Yes. What was actually mine they couldn't take from me when I married. The spinet, the Persian carpets, theLouis Quinze sofa and chairs, the Regency escritoire. Not much, but they were rightfully mine." The grey,wistful eyes stared past his shoulder at the oil painting on the wall behind him, dimmed with age a little, but stillshowing clearly the golden-haired woman in her pale-pink lace gown, crinolined with a hundred and sevenflounces. "Who was she?" he asked curiously180, turning his head. "I've always wanted to know.""A great lady.""Well, she's got to be related to you; she looks like you a bit." "Her? A relation of mine?" The eyes left theircontemplation of the picture and rested on her son's face ironically. "Now, do I look as if I could ever have had arelative like her?""Yes.""You've cobwebs in your brain; brush them out.""I wish you'd tell me, Mum."She sighed and shut the spinet, dusting the gold off her fingers. "There's nothing to tell, nothing at all. Come on,help me move these things into the middle of the room, so Daddy can pack them."The voyage was a nightmare. Before the Wahine was out of Wellington harbor they were all seasick182, and theycontinued to be seasick all the way across twelve hundred miles of gale-stirred, wintry seas. Paddy took the boysup on deck and kept them there in spite of the bitter wind and constant spray, only going below to see his womenand baby when some kind soul volunteered to keep an eye on his four miserable183, retching boys. Much though heyearned for fresh air, Frank had elected to remain below to guard the women. The cabin was tiny, stifling185 andreeked of oil, for it was below the water line and toward the bow, where the ship's motion was most violent.
Some hours out of Wellington Frank and Meggie became convinced their mother was going to die; the doctor,summoned from first class by a very worried steward189, shook his head over her pessimistically. "Just as well it'sonly a short voyage," he said, instructing his nurse to find milk for the baby.
Between bouts190 of retching Frank and Meggie managed to bottle-feed Hal, who didn't take to it kindly191. Fee hadstopped trying to vomit192 and had sunk into a kind of coma193, from which they could not rouse her. The stewardhelped Frank put her in the top bunk194, where the air was a little less stale, and holding a towel to his mouth tostem the watery195 bile he still brought up, Frank perched himself on the edge beside her, stroking the mattedyellow hair back from her brow. Hour after hour he stuck to his post in spite of his own sickness; every timePaddy came in he was with his mother, stroking her hair, while Meggie huddled196 on a lower berth with Hal, atowel to her mouth. Three hours out of Sydney the seas dropped to a glassy calm and fog stole in furtively198 fromthe far Antarctic, wrapping itself about the old ship. Meggie, reviving a little, imagined it bellowed199 regularly inpain now the terrible buffeting200 was over. They inched through the gluey greyness as stealthily as a hunted thinguntil that deep, monotonous201 bawl202 sounded again from somewhere on the superstructure, a lost and lonely,indescribably sad noise. Then all around them the air was filled with mournful bellows203 as they slipped throughghostly smoking water into the harbor. Meggie never forgot the sound of foghorns204, her first introduction toAustralia.
Paddy carried Fee off the Wahine in his arms, Frank following with the baby, Meggie with a case, each of theboys stumbling wearily under some kind of burden. They had come into Pyrmont, a meaningless name, on afoggy winter morning at the end of August, 1921. An enormous line of taxis waited outside the iron shed on thewharf; Meggie gaped205 round-eyed, for she had never seen so many cars in one place at one time. Somehow Paddypacked them all into a single cab, its driver volunteering to take them to the People's Palace. "That's the place foryouse, mate," he told Paddy. "It's a hotel for the workingman run by the Sallies."The streets were thronged207 with cars seeming to rush in all directions; there were very few horses. They staredraptly out of the taxi windows at the tall brick buildings, the narrow winding208 streets, the rapidity with whichcrowds of people seemed to merge209 and dissolve in some strange urban ritual. Wellington had awed210 them, butSydney made Wellington look like a small country town.
While Fee rested in one of the myriad211 rooms of the warren the Salvation212 Army fondly called the People'sPalace, Paddy went off to Central Railway Station to see when they could get a train for Gillanbone. Quiterecovered, the boys clamored to go with him, for they had been told it was not very far, and that the way was 84all shops, including one which sold squill candy. Envying their youth, Paddy yielded, for he wasn't sure howstrong his own legs were after three days of seasickness213. Frank and Meggie stayed with Fee and the baby,longing214 to go, too, but more concerned that their mother be better. Indeed, she seemed to gain strength rapidlyonce off the ship, and had drunk a bowl of soup and nibbled215 a slice of toast brought to her by one of theworkingman's bonneted216 angels.
"If we don't go tonight, Fee, it's a week until the next through train," Paddy said when he returned. "Do youthink you could manage the journey tonight?"Fee sat up, shivering. "I can manage.""I think we ought to wait," Frank said hardily217. "I don't think Mum's well enough to travel.""What you don't seem to understand, Frank, is that if we miss tonight's train we have to wait a whole week, andI just don't have the price of a week's stay in Sydney in my pocket. This is a big country, and where we're goingisn't served by a daily train. We could get as far as Dubbo on any one of three trains tomorrow, but then we'dhave to wait for a local connection, and they told me we'd suffer a lot more traveling that way than if we makethe effort to catch tonight's express.""I'll manage, Paddy," Fee repeated. "I've got Frank and Meggie; I'll be all right." Her eyes were on Frank,pleading for his silence. "Then I'll send Mary a telegram now, telling her to expect us tomorrow night."Central Station was bigger than any building the Clearys had ever been inside, a vast glass cylinder218 whichseemed simultaneously219 to echo and absorb the din51 of thousands of people waiting beside battered, strappedsuitcases and fixedly221 watching a giant indicator222 board which men with long poles altered by hand. In thegathering evening darkness they found themselves a part of the throng206, their eyes on the steel concertina gates ofplatform five; though shut, they bore a large hand-painted sign saying GILLANBONE MAIL. On platform oneand platform two a terrific activity heralded225 the imminent226 departure of the Brisbane and Melbourne nightexpresses, passengers crowding through the barriers. Soon it was their turn, as the gates of platform fivesquashed themselves open and the people began eagerly to move.
Paddy found them an empty second-class compartment227, put the older boys by the windows and Fee, Meggieand the baby by the sliding doors which led into the long corridor connecting compartments228. Faces would peer inhopefully in sight of a spare seat, to vanish horrified229 at the sight of so many young children. Sometimes being alarge family was an advantage. The night was cold enough to warrant unstrapping of the big tartan traveling rugsall the suitcases bore on their outsides; though the carnage was not heated, steel boxes full of hot ashes lay alongthe floor radiating warmth, and no one had expected heating anyway because nothing in Australia or NewZealand was ever heated.
"How far is it, Daddy?" Meggie asked as the train drew out, clanking and rocking gently across an eternity230 ofpoints.
"A long way further than it looked on our atlas, Meggie. Six hundred and ten miles. We'll be there latetomorrow afternoon."The boys gasped, but forgot it at the blossoming of a fairyland of lights outside; everyone clustered at thewindows and watched while the first miles flew by and still the houses did not diminish. The speed increased, thelights grew scattered233 and finally went out, replaced by a constant flurry of sparks streaming past in a howlingwind. When Paddy took the boys outside so Fee could feed Hal, Meggie gazed after them longingly234. These daysit seemed she was not to be included as one of the boys, not since the baby had disrupted her life and chained herto the house as firmly as her mother 86 was. Not that she really minded, she told herself loyally. He was such adear little fellow, the chief delight of her life, and it was nice to have Mum treat her as another grown-up lady.
What caused Mum to grow babies she had no idea, but the result was lovely. She gave Hal to Fee; the trainstopped not long after, creaking and squealing235, and seemed to stand hours panting for breath. She was dying toopen the window and look out, but the compartment was growing very cold in spite of the hot ashes on the floor.
Paddy came in from the corridor with a steaming cup of tea for Fee, who put Hal back on the seat, glutted236 andsleepy.
"What is it?" she asked.
"A place called Valley Heights. We take on another engine here for the climb to Lithgow, the girl in therefreshment room said.""How long have I got to drink this?""Fifteen minutes. Frank's getting you some sandwiches and I'll see the boys are fed. Our next refreshment237 stopis a placed called Blayney, much later in the night."Meggie shared her mother's cup of hot, sugary tea, suddenly unbearably excited, and gobbled her sandwichwhen Frank brought it. He settled her on the long seat below baby Hal, tucked a rug firmly around her, and thendid the same for Fee, stretched out full length on the seat opposite. Stuart and Hughie were bedded down on thefloor between the seats, but Paddy told Fee that he was taking Bob, Frank and Jack several compartments downto talk to some shearers, and would spend the night there. It was much nicer than the ship, clicking along to therhythmic huff-a-huff of the two engines, listening to the wind in the telegraph wires, the occasional flurry offurious huffs as steel wheels slipped on sloping steel rails, frantically239 sought traction240; Meggie went to sleep.
In the morning they stared, awed and dismayed, at a landscape so alien they had not dreamed anything like itexisted on the same planet as New Zealand. The rolling hills were there certainly, but absolutely nothing elsereminiscent of home. It was all brown and grey, even the trees! The winter wheat was already turned a fawnishsilver by the glaring sun, miles upon miles of it rippling242 and bending in the wind, broken only by stands of thin,spindling, blue-leafed trees and dusty clumps243 of tired grey bushes. Fee's stoical eyes surveyed the scene withoutchanging expression, but poor Meggie's were full of tears. It was horrible, fenceless and vast, without a trace ofgreen.
From freezing night it turned to scorching245 day as the sun climbed toward its zenith and the train racketed on andon and on, stopping occasionally in some tiny town full of bicycles and horse-drawn246 vehicles; cars were scarceout here, it seemed. Paddy opened both the windows all the way in spite of the soot247 which swirled248 in and settledon everything; it was so hot they were gasping249, their heavy New Zealand winter clothing sticking and itching250. Itdid not seem possible that anywhere outside of hell could be so hot in winter. Gillanbone came with the dyingsun, a strange small collection of ramshackle wooden and corrugated251 iron buildings along either side of onedusty wide street, treeless and tired. The melting sun had licked a golden paste over everything, and gave thetown a transient gilded252 dignity which faded even as they stood on the platform watching. It became once more atypical settlement on the very edge of the Back of Beyond, a last outpost in a steadily254 diminishing rainfall belt;not far away westward255 began two thousand miles of the Neverationever, the desert lands where it could not rain.
A resplendent black car was standing in the station yard, and striding unconcernedly toward them through theinches-deep dust came a priest. His long soutane made him seem a figure out of the past, as if he did not move onfeet like ordinary men, but drifted dreamlike; 88 the dust rose and billowed around him, red in the last of thesunset. "Hello, I'm Father de Bricassart," he said, holding out his hand to Paddy. "You have to be Mary's brother;you're the living image of her." He turned to Fee and lifted her limp hand to his lips, smiling in genuineastonishment; no one could spot a gentlewoman quicker than Father Ralph. "Why, you're beautiful!" he said, asif it were the most natural remark in the world for a priest to make, and then his eyes went onward256 to the boys,standing together in a huddle197. They rested for a moment with puzzled bewilderment on Frank, who had charge ofthe baby, and ticked off each boy as they got smaller and smaller. Behind them, all by herself, Meggie stoodgaping up at him with her mouth open, as if she were looking at God. Without seeming to notice how his fineserge robe wallowed in the dust, he stepped past the boys and squatted258 down to hold Meggie between his hands,and they were firm, gentle, kind. "Well! And who are you?" he asked her, smiling. "Meggie," she said.
"Her name's Meghann." Frank scowled259, hating this beautiful man, his stunning260 height.
"My favorite name, Meghann." He straightened, but held Meggie's hand in his. "It will be better for you to stayat the presbytery tonight," he said, leading Meggie toward the car. "I'll drive you out to Drogheda in the morning;it's too far after the train ride from Sydney."Aside from the Hotel Imperial, the Catholic church, school, convent and presbytery were the only brick edificesin Gillanbone, even the big public school having to content itself with timber frame. Now that darkness hadfallen, the air had grown incredibly chill; but in the presbytery lounge a huge log fire was blazing, and the smellof food came tantalizingly261 from somewhere beyond. The housekeeper, a wizened263 old Scotswoman with amazingenergy, bustled about showing them their 89 rooms, chattering264 all the while in a broad western Highlands accent.
Used to the touch-me-not reserve of the Wahine priests, the Clearys found it hard to cope with Father Ralph'seasy, cheerful bonhomie. Only Paddy thawed265, for he could remember the friendliness266 of the priests in his nativeGalway, their closeness to lesser267 beings. The rest ate their supper in careful silence and escaped upstairs as soonas they could, Paddy reluctantly following. To him, his religion was a warmth and a consolation268; but to the restof his family it was something rooted in fear, a do-it-or-thou-shah-be-damned compulsion.
When they had gone, Father Ralph stretched out in his favorite chair, staring at the fire, smoking a cigarette andsmiling. In his mind's eye he was passing the Clearys in review, as he had first seen them from the station yard.
The man so like Mary, but bowed with hard work and very obviously not of her malicious269 disposition270; his weary,beautiful wife, who looked as if she ought to have descended271 from a landaulet drawn by matched white horses;dark and surly Frank, with black eyes, black eyes; the sons, most of them like their father, but the youngest one,Stuart, very like his mother, he'd be a handsome man when he grew up; impossible to tell what the baby wouldbecome; and Meggie. The sweetest, the most adorable little girl he had ever seen; hair of a color which defieddescription, not red and not gold, a perfect fusion272 of both. And looking up at him with silver-grey eyes of such alambent purity, like melted jewels. Shrugging, he threw the cigarette stub into the fire and got to his feet. He wasgetting fanciful in his old age; melted jewels, indeed! More likely his own eyes were coming down with thesandy blight274.
In the morning he drove his overnight guests to Drogheda, so inured275 by now to the landscape that he derivedgreat amusement from their comments. The last hill lay two hundred miles to the east; this was the land of theblack soil plains, he explained. Just sweeping277, lightly timbered grasslands278 as flat as a board. The day was as hotas the previous one, but the Daimler was a great deal more comfortable to travel in than the train had been. Andthey had started out early, fasting, Father Ralph's vestments and the Blessed Sacrament packed carefully in ablack case.
"The sheep are dirty!" said Meggie dolefully, gazing at the many hundreds of rusty279-red bundles with theirquesting noses down into the grass. "Ah, I can see I ought to have chosen New Zealand," the priest said. "It mustbe like Ireland, then, and have nice cream sheep.""Yes, it is like Ireland in many ways; it has the same beautiful green grass. But it's wilder, a lot less tamed,"Paddy answered. He liked Father Ralph very much.
Just then a group of emus lurched to their feet and commenced to run, fleet as the wind, their ungainly legs ablur, their long necks stretched out. The children gasped and burst out laughing, enchanted280 at seeing giant birdswhich ran instead of flying.
"What a pleasure it is not to have to get out and open these' wretched gates," Father Ralph said as the last onewas shut behind them and Bob, who had done gate duty for him, scrambled282 back into the car. After the shocksAustralia had administered to them in bewildering rapidity, Drogheda homestead seemed like a touch of home,with its gracious Georgian facade283 and its budding wistaria vines, its thousands of rosebushes. "Are we going tolive here?" Meggie squeaked284. "Not exactly," the priest said quickly. "The house you're going to live in is about amile further on, down by the creek."Mary Carson was waiting to receive them in the vast drawing room and did not rise to greet her brother, butforced him to come to her as she sat in her wing chair.
"Well, Paddy," she said pleasantly enough, looking past him fixedly to where Father Ralph stood with Meggiein his arms, and her little arms locked tightly about his neck. Mary Carson got up ponderously285, without greetingFee or the children.
"Let us hear Mass immediately," she said. "I'm sure Father de Bricassart is anxious to be on his way.""Not at all, my dear Mary." He laughed, blue eyes gleaming. "I shall say Mass, we'll all have a good hotbreakfast at your table, and then I've promised Meggie I'll show her where she's going to live.""Meggie," said Mary Carson.
"Yes, this is Meggie. Which rather begins the introductions at the tail, doesn't it? Let me begin at the head,Mary, please. This is Fiona." Mary Carson nodded curtly287, and paid scant288 attention as Father Ralph ran throughthe boys; she was too busy watching the priest and Meggie.
The head stockman's house stood on piles some thirty feet above a narrow gulch289 fringed with tall, stragglinggum trees and many weeping willows291. After the splendor292 of Drogheda homestead it was rather bare andutilitarian, but in its appurtenances it was not unlike the house they had left behind in New Zealand. SolidVictorian furniture filled the rooms to overflowing294, smothered in fine red dust.
"You're lucky here, you have a bathroom," Father Ralph said as he brought them up the plank295 steps to the frontveranda; it was quite a climb, for the piles upon which the house was poised296 were fifteen feet high. "In case thecreek runs a banker," Father Ralph explained. "You're right on it here and I've heard it can rise sixty feet in anight."They did indeed have a bathroom; an old tin bath and a chipped water heater stood in a walled-off alcove297 at theend of the back veranda. But, as the women found to their disgust, the lavatory298 was nothing more than a hole inthe ground some two hundred yards away from the house, and it stank299. After New Zealand, primitive300.
"Whoever lived here wasn't very clean," Fee said as she ran her finger through the dust on the sideboard.
Father Ralph laughed. "You'll fight a losing battle trying to get rid of that," he said. "This is the Outback, andthere are three things you'll never defeat-the heat, the dust and the flies. No matter what you do, they'll always bewith you."Fee looked at the priest. "You're very good to us, Father.""And why not? You're the only relatives of my very good friend, Mary Carson."She shrugged, unimpressed. "I'm not used to being on friendly terms with a priest. In New Zealand they keptthemselves very much to themselves." "You're not a Catholic, are you?""No, Paddy's the Catholic. Naturally the children have been reared as Catholics, every last one of them, if that'swhat's worrying you." "It never occurred to me. Do you resent it?""I really don't care one way or the other.""You didn't convert?""I'm not a hypocrite, Father de Bricassart. I had lost faith in my own church, and I had no wish to espouse83 adifferent, equally meaningless creed302." "I see." He watched Meggie as she stood on the front veranda, peering upthe track toward Drogheda big house. "She's so pretty, your daughter. I have a fondness for titian hair, you know.
Hers would have sent the artist running for his brushes. I've never seen exactly that color before. Is she your onlydaughter?""Yes. Boys run in both Paddy's family and my own; girls are unusual." "Poor little thing," he said obscurely.
After the crates303 arrived from Sydney and the house took on a more familiar look with its books, china,ornaments and the parlor filled with Fee's furniture, things began to settle down. Paddy and the boys older thanStu were away most of the time with the two station hands Mary Carson had retained to teach them the manydifferences between sheep in northwest New SouthWales and sheep in New Zealand. Fee, Meggie and Stu discovered the differences between running a house inNew Zealand and living in the head stockman's residence on Drogheda; there was a tacit understanding theywould never disturb Mary Carson herself, but her housekeeper and her maids were just as eager to help thewomen as her station hands were to help the men. Drogheda was, everyone learned, a world in itself, so cut offfrom civilization that after a while even Gillanbone became no more than a name with remote memories. Withinthe bounds of the great Home Paddock lay stables, a smithy, garages, innumerable sheds storing everything fromfeed to machinery304, dog kennels305 and runs, a labyrinthine306 maze307 of stockyards, a mammoth308 shearing shed with thestaggering number of twenty-six stands in it, and yet another jigsaw309 puzzle of yards behind it. There were fowlruns, pigpens, cow bails310 and a dairy, quarters for the twenty-six shearers, small shacks311 for the rouseabouts, twoother, smaller, houses like their own for stockmen, a jackaroos' barracks, a slaughter313 yard, and woodheaps. Allthis sat in just about the middle of a treeless circle whose diameter measured three miles: the Home Paddock.
Only at the point where the head stockman's house lay did the conglomeration314 of buildings almost touch theforests beyond. However, there were many trees around the sheds, yards and animal runs, to provide welcomeand necessary shade; mostly pepper trees, huge, hardy, dense and sleepily lovely. Beyond in the long grass of theHome Paddock, horses and milch cows grazed drowsily315. The deep gully beside the head stockman's house had ashallow, sluggish316 stream of muddy water at its bottom. No one credited Father Ralph's tale of its rising sixty feetovernight; it didn't seem possible. Water from this creek was pumped up by hand to service the bathroom andkitchen, and it took the women a long time to get used to washing themselves, the dishes and the clothes ingreenish-brown water. Six massive corrugated-iron tanks perched on wooden derricklike towers caught rain fromthe roof and provided them with drinking water, but they learned they must use it very sparingly, that it wasnever to be used for washing. For there was no guarantee as to when the next rains might come to fill the tanksup.
The sheep and cattle drank artesian water, not tapped from an easily accessible water table, but true artesianwater brought from over three thousand feet below the surface. It gushed318 at boiling point from a pipe at what wascalled the borehead, and ran through tiny channels fringed with poisonously green grass to every paddock on theproperty. These channels were the bore drains, and the heavily sulphurated, mineral-laden water they containedwas not fit for human consumption.
At first the distances staggered them; Drogheda had two hundred and fifty thousand acres. Its longest boundarystretched for eighty miles. The homestead was forty miles and twenty-seven gates away from Gillanbone, theonly settlement of any kind closer than a hundred and six miles. The narrow eastern boundary was formed by theBarwon River, which was what the locals called this northern course of the Darling River, a great muddythousand-mile stream that finally joined the Murray River and surged out into the southern ocean fifteen hundredmiles away in South Australia. Gillan Creek, which ran in the gully beside the head stockman's house, mergedinto the Barwon two miles beyond the Home Paddock.
Paddy and the boys loved it. Sometimes they spent days on end in the saddle, miles away from the homestead,camping at night under a sky so vast and filled with stars it seemed they were a part of God. The grey-brownland swarmed319 with life. Kangaroos in flocks of thousands streamed leaping through the trees, taking fences intheir stride, utterly lovely in their grace and freedom and numbers; emus built their nests 96 in the middle of thegrassy plain and stalked like giants about their territorial320 boundaries, taking fright at anything strange andrunning fleeter than horses away from their dark-green, football-sized eggs; termites321 built rusty towers likeminiature skyscrapers322; huge ants with a savage135 bite poured in rivers down mounded holes in the ground.
The bird life was so rich and varied325 there seemed no end to new kinds, and they lived not in ones and twos butin thousands upon thousands: tiny green-and-yellow parakeets Fee used to call lovebirds, but which the localscalled budgerigars; scarlet326-and-blue smallish parrots called rosellas; big pale-grey parrots with brilliant purplish-pink breasts, underwings and heads, called galahs; and the great pure white birds with cheeky yellow combscalled sulphur-crested cockatoos. Exquisite327 tiny finches whirred and wheeled, so did sparrows and starlings, andthe strong brown kingfishers called kookaburras laughed and chuckled328 gleefully or dived for snakes, theirfavorite food. They were wellnigh human, all these birds, and completely without fear, sitting in hundreds in thetrees peering about with bright intelligent eyes, screaming, talking, laughing, imitating anything that produced asound. Fearsome lizards329 five or six feet long pounded over the ground and leaped lithely330 for high tree branches,as at home off the earth as on it; they were goannas. And there were many other lizards, smaller but some no lessfrightening, adorned331 with horny triceratopean ruffs about their necks, or with swollen332, bright-blue tongues. Ofsnakes the variety was almost endless, and the Clearys learned that the biggest and most dangerous looking wereoften the most benign333, while a stumpy little creature a foot long might be a death adder334; carpet snakes, coppersnakes, tree snakes, red-bellied black snakes, brown snakes, lethal336 tiger snakes.
And insects! Grasshoppers337, locusts338, crickets, bees, flies of all sizes and sorts, cicadas, gnats339, dragonflies, giantmoths and so many butterflies! The spiders were dreadful, huge hairy things with a leg span of inches, ordeceptively small and deadly black-things lurking343 in the lavatory; some lived in vast wheeling webs slungbetween trees, some rocked inside dense gossamer344 cradles hooked among grass blades, others dived into littleholes in the ground complete with lids which shut after them.
Predators345 were there, too: wild pigs frightened of nothing, savage and flesh-eating, black hairy things the size offully grown cows; dingoes, the wild native dogs which slunk close to the ground and blended into the grass;crows in hundreds carking desolately346 from the blasted white skeletons of dead trees; hawks347 and eagles, hoveringmotionless on the air currents. From some of these the sheep and cattle had to be protected, especially when theydropped their young. The kangaroos and rabbits ate the precious grass; the pigs and dingoes ate lambs, calvesand sick animals; the crows pecked out eyes. The Clearys had to learn to shoot, then carried rifles as they rode,sometimes to put a suffering beast out of its misery350, sometimes to fell a boar or a dingo.
This, thought the boys exultantly351, was life. Not one of them yearned184 for New Zealand; when the flies clusteredlike syrup352 in the corners of their eyes, up their noses, in their mouths and ears, they learned the Australian trickand hung corks353 bobbing from the ends of strings354 all around the brims of their hats. To prevent crawlies fromgetting up inside the legs of (heir baggy355 trousers they tied strips of kangaroo hide called bowyangs below theirknees, giggling356 at the silly-sounding name, but awed by the necessity. New Zealand was tame compared to this;this was life. Tied to the house and its immediate286 environs, the women found life much less to their liking, forthey had not the leisure or the excuse to ride, nor did they have the stimulation358 of varying activities. It was justharder to do what women always did: cook, clean, wash, iron, . 98 care for babies. They battled the heat, thedust, the flies, the many steps, the muddy water, the nearly perennial359 absence of men to carry and chop wood,pump water, kill fowls360. The heat especially was hard to bear, and it was as yet only early spring; even so, thethermometer out on the shady veranda reached a hundred degrees every day. Inside the kitchen with the rangegoing, it was a hundred and twenty degrees.
Their many layers of clothing were close-fitting and designed for New Zealand, where inside the house it wasalmost always cool. Mary Carson, exercising gently by walking down to see her sister-in-law, looked at Fee'shigh-necked, floor-length calico gown superciliously361. She herself was clad in the new fashion, a cream silk dresscoming only halfway362 down her calves348, with loose elbow sleeves, no waist and a low décolletage. "Really, Fiona,you're hopelessly old-fashioned," she said, glancing round the parlor with its fresh coat of cream paint, thePersian carpets and the spindly priceless furniture.
"I have no time to be anything else," Fee said, curtly for her when acting363 as hostess.
"You'll have more time now, with the men away so much and fewer meals to get. Raise your hems224 and stopwearing petticoats and stays, or you'll die when summer comes. It can get fifteen to twenty degrees hotter thanthis, you know." Her eyes dwelled on the portrait of the beautiful blond woman in her Empress Eugeniecrinoline. "Who's that?" she asked, pointing. "My grandmother.""Oh, really? And the furniture, the carpets?" "Mine, from my grandmother.""Oh, really? My dear Fiona, you've come down in the world, haven't you?" Fee never lost her temper, so shedidn't now, but her thin lips got thinner. "I don't think so, Mary. I have a good man; you ought to know that.""But penniless. What was your maiden364 name?""Armstrong.""Oh, really? Not the Roderick Armstrong Armstrongs?" "He's my oldest brother. His namesake was my great-grandfather." Mary Carson rose, flapping her picture hat at the flies, which were not respecters of person. "Well,you're better born than the Clearys are, even if I do say so myself. Did you love Paddy enough to give all thatup?" "My reasons for what I do," said Fee levelly, "are my business, Mary, not yours. I do not discuss myhusband, even with his sister."The lines on either side of Mary Carson's nose got deeper, her eyes bulged365 slightly. "Hoity-toity!"She did not come again, but Mrs. Smith, her housekeeper, came often, and repeated Mary Carson's advice abouttheir clothes. "Look," she said, "there's a sewing machine in my quarters which I never use. I'll have a couple ofthe rouseabouts carry it down. If I do need to use it, I'll come down here." Her eyes strayed to baby Hal, rollingon the floor gleefully. "I like to hear the sound of children, Mrs. Cleary."Once every six weeks the mail came by horse-drawn dray from Gillanbone; this was the only contact with theoutside world. Drogheda possessed366 a Ford45 truck, another specially61 constructed Ford truck with a water tank onits tray, a model-T Ford car and a Rolls-Royce limousine367, but no one ever seemed to use them to go into Gillysave Mary Carson infrequently. Forty miles was as far as the moon.
Bluey Williams had the mail contract for the district and took six weeks to cover his territory. His flattoppeddray with its ten-foot wheels was drawn by a magnificent team of twelve draft horses, and was loaded with allthe things the outlying stations ordered. As well as the Royal Mail, he carried groceries, gasoline in forty-fourgallondrums, kerosene368 in square five-gallon cans, hay, bags of corn, calico bags of sugar and flour, woodenchests of tea, bags of potatoes, farm machinery, mail-order toys and clothes from Anthony Hordern's in Sydney,plus anything else that had to be brought in from Gilly or Outside. Moving at the clipping rate of twenty miles aday, he was welcomed wherever he stopped, plied70 for news and weather far away, handed the scribbled369 scraps370 ofpaper carefully wrapped around money for goods he would purchase in Gilly, handed the laboriously371 writtenletters which went into the canvas sack marked "Royal GVR Mail."West of Gilly there were only two stations on the route, Drogheda closer in, Bugela farther out; beyond Bugelalay the territory that got mail only once every six months. Bluey's dray swung in a great zigzagging372 arc throughall the stations southwest, west and northwest, then returned to Gilly before setting out eastward, a smallerjourney because Booroo town took over sixty miles east. Sometimes he brought people sitting beside him on hisunsheltered leather seat, visitors or hopefuls looking for work; sometimes he took people away, visitors ordiscontented stockmen or maids or roustabouts, very occasionally a governess. The squatters owned cars totransport themselves, but those who worked for the squatters depended upon Bluey for transport as well as goodsand letters.
After the bolts of cloth Fee had ordered came on the mail, she sat down at the donated sewing machine andbegan to make loose dresses in light cotton for herself and Meggie, light trousers and overalls374 for the men,smocks for Hal, curtains for the windows. There was no doubt it was cooler minus layers of underwear andtightly fitting outerwear.
Life was lonely for Meggie, only Stuart at the house among the boys. Jack and Hughie were off with theirfather learning to be stockmen-jackaroos, the young apprentices375 were called. Stuart wasn't company the way Jackand Hughie used to be. He lived in a world all his own, a quiet little boy who preferred to sit for hours watchingthe behavior of a throng of ants than climb trees, whereas Meggie adored to climb trees and thought Australiangums were marvelous, of infinite variety and difficulty. Not that there was much time for tree-climbing, or ant-watching for that matter. Meggie and Stuart worked hard. They chopped and carried the wood, dug holes forrefuse, tended the vegetable garden and looked after the fowls and pigs. They also learned how to kill snakes andspiders, though they never ceased to fear them. The rainfall had been mediocrely376 good for several years; thecreek was low but the tanks were about half full. The grass was still fairly good, but apparently nothing to itslush times.
"It will probably get worse," said Mary Carson grimly. But they were to know flood before they encountered afull-fledged drought. Halfway through January the country caught the southern edge of the northwest monsoons377.
Captious378 in the extreme, the great winds blew to suit themselves. Sometimes only the far northern tips of thecontinent felt their drenching379 summer rains, sometimes they traveled far down the Outback and gave theunhappy urbanites of Sydney a wet summer. That January the clouds stormed dark across the sky, torn intosodden shreds381 by the wind, and it began to rain; not a gentle downpour but a steady, roaring deluge382 which wenton and on.
They had been warned; Bluey Williams had turned up with his dray loaded high and twelve spare horses behindhim, for he was moving fast to get through his rounds before the rains made further provisioning of the stationsimpossible.
"Monsoons are comin'," he said, rolling a cigarette and indicating piles of extra groceries with his whip.
"The Cooper an' the Barcoo an' the Diamantina are runnin' real bankers an' the Overflow293 is overflowin'. Thewhole Queenslan' Outback's two foot under water an' them poor buggers is tryin' to find a rise in the groun' to putthe sheep on."Suddenly there was a controlled panic; Paddy and the boys worked like madmen, moving the sheep out of thelow-lying paddocks and as far away from the creek and the Barwon as they could. Father Ralph turned up,saddled his horse and set off with Frank and the best team of dogs for two uncleared paddocks alongside theBarwon, while Paddy and the two stockmen each took a boy in other directions.
Father Ralph was an excellent stockman himself. He rode a thoroughbred chestnut383 mare181 Mary Carson had givenhim, clad in faultlessly tailored buff jodhpurs, shiny tan knee boots, and a spotless white shirt with its sleevesrolled up his sinewy384 arms and its neck open to show his smooth brown chest. In baggy old grey twill trouserstied with bowyangs and a grey flannel385 under-shirt, Frank felt like a poor relation. Which was what he was, hethought wryly386, following the straight figure on the dainty mare through a stand of box and pine beyond the creek.
He himself rode a hard-mouthed piebald stock horse, a mean-tempered beast with a will of its own and aferocious hatred387 of other horses. The dogs were yelping388 and cavorting389 in excitement, fighting and snarlingamong themselves until parted with a flick390 from Father Ralph's viciously wielded stock whip. It seemed therewas nothing the man couldn't do; he was familiar with the coded whistles setting the dogs to work, and plied hiswhip much better than Frank, still learning this exotic Australian art.
The big Queensland blue brute391 that led the dog pack took a slavish fancy to the priest and followed him withoutquestion, meaning Frank was-very definitely the second-string man. Half of Frank didn't mind; he alone amongPaddy's sons had not taken to life on Drogheda. He had wanted nothing more than to quit New Zealand, but notto come to this. He hated the ceaseless patrolling of the paddocks, the hard ground to sleep on most nights, thesavage dogs which could not be treated as pets and were shot if they failed to do their work. But the ride into thegathering clouds had an element of adventure to it; even the bending, cracking trees seemed to dance with anoutlandish joy. Father Ralph worked like a man in the grip of some obsession, sooling the dogs afterunsuspecting bands of sheep, sending the silly woolly things leaping and bleating392 in fright until the low shapesstreaking through the grass got them packed tight and running. Only having the dogs enabled a small handful ofmen to operate a property the size of Drogheda; bred to work sheep or cattle, they were amazingly intelligent andneeded very little direction. By nightfall Father Ralph and the dogs, with Frank trying to do his inadequate393 bestbehind them, had cleared all the sheep out of one paddock, normally several days' work. He unsaddled his marenear a clump244 of trees by the gate to the second paddock, talking optimistically of being able to get the stock outof it also before the rain started. The dogs were sprawled394 flat out in the grass, tongues lolling, the big Queenslandblue fawning395 and cringing396 at Father Ralph's feet. Frank dug a repulsive397 collection of kangaroo meat out of hissaddlebag and flung it to the dogs, which fell on it snapping and biting at each other jealously.
"Bloody398 awful brutes," he said. "They don't behave like dogs; they're just jackals.""I think these are probably a lot closer to what God intended dogs should be," said Father Ralph mildly. "Alert,intelligent, aggressive and almost untamed. For myself, I prefer them to the house-pet species." He smiled. "Thecats, too. Haven't you noticed them around the sheds? As wild and vicious as panthers; won't let a human beingnear them. But they hunt magnificently, and call no man master or provider."He unearthed399 a cold piece of mutton and a packet of bread and butter from his saddlebag, carved a hunk fromthe mutton and handed the rest to Frank. Putting the bread and butter on a log between them, he sank his whiteteeth into the meat with evident enjoyment400. Thirst was slaked401 from a canvas water bag, then cigarettes rolled.
A lone107 wilga tree stood nearby; Father Ralph indicated it with his cigarette.
"That's the spot to sleep," he said, unstrapping his blanket and picking up his saddle.
Frank followed him to the tree, commonly held the most beautiful in this part of Australia. Its leaves were denseand a pale lime green, its shape almost perfectly rounded. The foliage grew so close to the ground that sheepcould reach it easily, the result being that every wilga bottom was mown as straight as a topiary hedge. If the rainbegan they would have more shelter under it than any other tree, for Australian trees were generally thinner offoliage than the trees of wetter lands.
"You're not happy, Frank, are you?" Father Ralph asked, lying down with a sigh and rolling another smoke.
From his position a couple of feet away Frank turned to look at him suspiciously. "What's happy?""At the moment, your father and brothers. But not you, not your mother, and not your sister. Don't you likeAustralia?""Not this bit of it. I want to go to Sydney. I might have a chance there to make something of myself.""Sydney, eh? It's a den13 of iniquity402." Father Ralph was smiling. "I don't care! Out here I'm stuck the same way Iwas in New Zealand; I can't get away from him.""Him?"But Frank had not meant to say it, and would say no more. He lay looking up at the leaves.
"How old are you, Frank?" "Twenty-two." "Oh, yes! Have you ever been away from your people?"No.
"Have you even been to a dance, had a girlfriend?" "No." Frank refused to give him his title.
"Then he'll not hold you much longer.""He'll hold me until I die."Father Ralph yawned, and composed himself for sleep. "Good night," he said. In the morning the clouds werelower, but the rain held off all day and they got the second paddock cleared. A slight ridge403 ran clear acrossDrogheda from northeast to southwest; it was in these paddocks the stock were concentrated, where they hadhigher ground to seek if the water rose above the escarpments of the creek and the Barwon.
The rain began almost on nightfall, as Frank and the priest hurried at a fast trot404 toward the creek ford below thehead stockman's house. "No use worrying about blowing them now!" Father Ralph shouted. "Dig your heels in,lad, or you'll drown in the mud!"They were soaked within seconds, and so was the hard-baked ground. The fine,- nonporous soil became a sea ofmud, miring405 the horses to their hocks and setting them floundering. While the grass persisted they managed topress on, but near the creek where the earth had been trodden to bareness they had to dismount. Once relieved oftheir burdens, the horses had no trouble, but Frank found it impossible to keep his balance. It was worse than askating rink. On hands and knees they crawled to the top of the creek bank, and slid down it like projectiles406. Thestone roadway, which was normally covered by a foot of lazy water, was under four feet of racing26 foam407; Frankheard the priest laugh. Urged on by shouts and slaps from sodden380 hats, the horses managed to scramble281 up the farbank without mishap408, but Frank and Father Ralph could not. Every time they tried, they slid back again. Thepriest had just suggested they climb a willow290 when Paddy, alerted by the appearance of riderless horses, camewith a rope and hauled them out. Smiling and shaking his head, Father Ralph refused Paddy's offer of hospitality.
"I'm expected at the big house," he said.
Mary Carson heard him calling before any of her staff did, for he had chosen to walk around to the front of thehouse, thinking it would be easier to reach his room.
"You're not coming inside like that," she said, standing on the veranda. "Then be a dear, get me several towelsand my case."Unembarrassed, she watched him peel off his shirt, boots and breeches, leaning against the half-open windowinto her drawing room as he toweled the worst of the mud off.
"You're the most beautiful man I've ever seen, Ralph de Bricassart," she said. "Why is it so many priests arebeautiful? The Irishness? They're rather a handsome people, the Irish. Or is it that beautiful men find thepriesthood a refuge from the consequences of their looks? I'll bet the girls in Gilly just eat their hearts out overyou.""I learned long ago not to take any notice of lovesick girls." He laughed. "Any priest under fifty is a target forsome of them, and a priest under thirty-five is usually a target for all of them. But it's only the Protestant girlswho openly try to seduce409 me.""You never answer my questions outright410, do you?" Straightening, she laid her palm on his chest and held itthere. "You're a sybarite, Ralph, you lie in the sun. Are you as brown all over?"Smiling, he leaned his head forward, then laughed into her hair, his hands unbuttoning the cotton drawers; asthey fell to the ground he kicked them away, standing like a Praxiteles statue while she toured all the way aroundhim, taking her time and looking. The last two days had exhilarated him, so did the sudden awareness411 that shewas perhaps more vulnerable than he had imagined; but he knew her, and he felt quite safe in asking, "Do youwant me to make love to you, Mary?" She eyed his flaccid penis, snorting with laughter. "I wouldn't dream ofputting you to so much trouble! Do you need women, Ralph?" His head reared back scornfully. "No!""Men?""They're worse than women. No, I don't need them.""How about yourself?""Least of all.""Interesting." Pushing the window all the way up, she stepped through into the drawing room. "Ralph, Cardinalde Bricassart!" she mocked. But away from those discerning eyes of his she sagged412 back into her wing chair andclenched her fists, the gesture which rails against the inconsistencies of fate. Naked, Father Ralph stepped off theveranda to stand on the barbered lawn with his arms raised above his head, eyes closed; he let the rain pour overhim in warm, probing, spearing runnels, an exquisite sensation on bare skin. It was very dark. But he was stillflaccid.
The creek broke its banks and the water crept higher up the piles of Paddy's house, farther out across the HomePaddock toward the homestead itself.
"It will go down tomorrow," said Mary Carson when Paddy went to report, worried.
As usual, she was right; over the next week the water ebbed413 and finally returned to its normal channels. The suncame out, the temperature zoomed414 to a hundred and fifteen in the shade, and the grass seemed to take wing forthe sky, thigh-high and clean, bleached415 brilliant as gilt416, hurting the eyes. Washed and dusted, the trees glittered,and the hordes417 of parrots came back from wherever they had gone while the rain fell to flash their rainbowbodies amid the timber, more loquacious418 than ever. Father Ralph had returned to succor419 his neglectedparishioners, serene420 in the knowledge his knuckles421 would not be rapped; under the pristine422 white shirt next to hisheart resided a check for one thousand pounds. The bishop would be ecstatic.
The sheep were moved back to their normal pasture and the Clearys were forced to learn the Outback habit ofsiesta. They rose at five, got everything done before midday, then collapsed423 in twitching424, sweating heaps untilfive in the afternoon. This applied425 both to the women at the house and the men in the paddocks. Chores whichcould not be done early were done after five, and the evening meal eaten after the sun had gone down at a tableoutside on the veranda. All the beds had been moved outside as well for the heat persisted through the night. Itseemed as if the mercury had not gone below a century in weeks, day or night. Beef was a forgotten memory,only a sheep small enough to last without tainting426 until it was all eaten. Their palates longed for a change fromthe eternal round of baked mutton chops, mutton stew188, shepherd's pie made of minced427 mutton, curried428 mutton,roast leg of mutton, boiled pickled mutton, mutton casserole. But at the beginning of February life changedabruptly for Meggie and Stuart. They were sent to the convent in Gillanbone to board, for there was no schoolcloser. Hal, said Paddy, could learn by correspondence from Blackfriars School in Sydney when he was oldenough, but in the meantime, since Meggie and Stuart were used to teachers, Mary Carson had generouslyoffered to pay for their board and tuition at the Holy Cross convent. Besides, Fee was too busy with Hal tosupervise correspondence lessons as well. It had been tacitly understood from the beginning that Jack andHughie would go no further with their educations; Drogheda needed them on the land, and the land was whatthey wanted.
Meggie and Stuart found it a strange, peaceful existence at Holy Cross after their life on Drogheda, butespecially after the Sacred Heart in Wahine. Father Ralph had subtly indicated to the nuns429 that this pair ofchildren were his protégés, their aunt the richest woman in New South Wales. So Meggie's shyness wastransformed from a vice317 into a virtue431, and Stuart's odd isolation, his habit of staring for hours into illimitabledistances, earned him the epithet432 "saintly."It was very peaceful indeed, for there were very few boarders; people of the district wealthy enough to sendtheir offspring to boarding school invariably preferred Sydney. The convent smelled of polish and flowers, itsdark high corridors awash with quietness and a tangible433 holiness. Voices were muted, life went on behind a blackthin veil. No one caned434 them, no one shouted at them, and there was always Father Ralph. He came to see themoften, and had them to stay at the presbytery so regularly he decided435 to paint the bedroom Meggie used a delicateapple green, buy new curtains for the windows and a new quilt for the bed. Stuart continued to sleep in a roomwhich had been cream and brown through two redecorations; it simply never occurred to Father Ralph to wonderif Stuart was happy. He was the afterthought who to avoid offense436 must also be invited. Just why he was so fondof Meggie Father Ralph didn't know, nor for that matter did he spend much time wondering about it. It hadbegun with pity that day in the dusty station yard when he had noticed her lagging behind; set apart from the restof her family by virtue of her sex, he had shrewdly guessed. As to why Frank also moved on an outer perimeter437,this did not intrigue438 him at all, nor did he feel moved to pity Frank. There was something in Frank which killedtender emotions: a dark heart, a spirit lacking inner light. But Meggie? She had moved him unbearably, and hedidn't really know why. There was the color of her hair, which pleased him; the color and form of her eyes, likeher mother's and therefore beautiful, but so much sweeter, more expressive439; and her character, which he saw asthe perfect female character, passive yet enormously strong. No rebel, Meggie; on the contrary. All her life shewould obey, move within the boundaries of her female fate.
Yet none of it added up to the full total. Perhaps, had he looked more deeply into himself, he might have seenthat what he felt for her was the curious result of time, and place, and person. No one thought of her asimportant, which meant there was a space in her life into which he could fit himself and be sure of her love; shewas a child, and therefore no danger to his way of life or his priestly reputation; she was beautiful, and heenjoyed beauty; and, least acknowledged of all, she filled an empty space in his life which his God could not, forshe had warmth and a human solidity. Because he could not embarrass her family by giving her gifts, he gave heras much of his company as he could, and spent time and thought on redecorating her room at the presbytery; notso much to see her pleasure as to create a fitting setting for his jewel. No pinchbeck for Meggie. At the beginningof May the shearers arrived on Drogheda. Mary Carson was extraordinarily440 aware of how everything onDrogheda was done, from deploying441 the sheep to cracking a stock whip; she summoned Paddy to the big housesome days before the shearers came, and without moving from her wing chair she told him precisely442 what to dodown to the last little detail. Used to New Zealand shearing, Paddy had been staggered by the size of the shed, itstwenty-six stands; now, after the interview with his sister, facts and figures warred inside his head. Not onlywould Drogheda sheep be shorn on Drogheda, but Bugela and Dibban-Dibban and Beel-Beel sheep as well. Itmeant a grueling amount of work for every soul on the place, male and female. Communal443 shearing was thecustom and the stations sharing Drogheda's shearing facilities would naturally pitch in to help, but the brunt ofthe incidental work inevitably444 fell on the shoulders of those on Drogheda. The shearers would bring their owncook with them and buy their food from the station store, but those vast amounts of food had to be found; theramshackle barracks with kitchen and primitive bathroom attached had to be scoured445, cleaned and equipped withmattresses and blankets. Not all stations were as generous as Drogheda was to its shearers, but Drogheda prideditself on its hospitality, and its reputation as a "bloody good shed." For this was the one activity in which MaryCarson participated, so she didn't stint446 her purse. Not only was it one of the biggest sheds in New South Wales,but it required the very best men to be had, men of the Jackie Howe caliber447; over three hundred thousand sheepwould be shorn there before the shearers loaded their swags into the contractor's old Ford truck and disappeareddown the track to their next shed.
Frank had not been home for two weeks. With old Beerbarrel Pete the stockman, a team of dogs, two stockhorses and a light sulky attached to an unwilling91 nag40 to hold their modest needs, they had set out for the farwestern paddocks to bring the sheep in, working them closer and closer, culling448 and sorting. It was slow, tediouswork, not to be compared with that wild muster449 before the floods. Each paddock had its own stockyards, inwhich some of the grading and marking would be done and the mobs held until it was their turn to come in. Theshearing shed yards accommodated only ten thousand sheep at a time, so life wouldn't be easy while the shearerswere there; it would be a constant flurry of exchanging mobs, unshorn for shorn.
When Frank stepped into his mother's kitchen she was standing beside the sink at a never-ending job, peelingpotatoes.
"Mum, I'm home!" he said, joy in his voice.
As she swung around her belly450 showed, and his two weeks away lent his eyes added perception.
"Oh, God!" he said.
Her eyes lost their pleasure in seeing him, her face flooded with scarlet shame; she spread her hands over herballooning apron451 as if they could hide what her clothes could not.
Frank was shaking. "The dirty old goat!""Frank, I can't let you say things like that. You're a man now, you ought to understand. This is no different fromthe way you came into the world yourself, and it deserves the same respect. It isn't dirty. When you insult Daddy,you insult me.""He had no right! He should have left you alone!" Frank hissed452, wiping a fleck453 of foam from the corner of histrembling mouth. "It isn't dirty," she repeated wearily, and looked at him from her clear tired eyes as if she hadsuddenly decided to put shame behind her forever. "It's not dirty, Frank, and nor is the act which created it."This time his face reddened. He could not continue to meet her gaze, so he turned and went through into theroom he shared with Bob, Jack and Hughie. Its bare walls and little single beds mocked him, mocked him, thesterile and featureless look to it, the lack of a presence to warm it, a purpose to hallow it. And her face, herbeautiful tired face with its prim301 halo of golden hair, all alight because of what she and that hairy old goat haddone in the terrible heat of summer.
He could not get away from it, he could not get away from her, from the thoughts at the back of his mind, fromthe hungers natural to his age and manhood. Mostly he managed to push it all below consciousness, but when sheflaunted tangible evidence of her lust231 before his eyes, threw her mysterious activity with that lecherous455 old beastin his very teeth .... How could he think of it, how could he consent to it, how could he bear it? He wanted to beable to think of her as totally holy, pure and untainted as the Blessed Mother, a being who was above such thingsthough all her sisters throughout the world be guilty of it. To see her proving his concept of her wrong was theroad to madness. It had become necessary to his sanity457 to imagine that she lay with that ugly old man in perfectcha/y, to have a place to sleep, but that in the night they never turned toward each other, or touched. Oh, God!
A scraping clang made him look down, to find he had twisted the brass rail of the bed's foot into an S.
"Why aren't you Daddy?" he asked it.
"Frank," said his mother from the doorway458.
He looked up, his black eyes glittering and wet like rained-upon coal. "I'll end up killing459 him," he said.
"If you do that, you'll kill me," said Fee, coming to sit upon the bed. "No, I'd free you!" he countered wildly,hopefully. "Frank, I can never be free, and I don't want to be free. I wish I knew where your blindness comesfrom, but I don't. It isn't mine, nor is it your father's. I know you're not happy, but must you take it out on me, andon Daddy? Why do you insist upon making everything so hard? Why?" She looked down at her hands, looked upat him. "I don't want to say this, but I think I have to. It's time you found yourself a girl, Frank, got married andhad a family of your own. There's room on Drogheda. I've never been worried about the other boys in thatrespect; they don't seem to have your nature at all. But you need a wife, Frank. If you had one, you wouldn't havetime to think about me."He had turned his back upon her, and wouldn't turn around. For perhaps five minutes she sat on the bed hopinghe would say something, then she sighed, got up and left.
After the shearers had gone and the district had settled into the semi-inertia of winter came the annualGillanbone Show and Picnic Races. It was the most important event in the social calendar, and went on for twodays. Fee didn't feel well enough to go, so Paddy drove Mary Carson into town in her Rolls-Royce without hiswife to support him or keep Mary's tongue in its silent position. He had noticed that for some mysterious reasonFee's very presence quelled460 his sister, put her at a disadvantage. Everyone else was going. Under threat of deathto behave themselves, the boys rode in with Beerbarrel Pete, Jim, Tom, Mrs. Smith and the maids in the truck,but Frank left early on his own in the model-T Ford. The adults of the party were all staying over for the secondday's race meeting; for reasons known best to herself, Mary Carson declined Father Ralph's offer ofaccommodation at the presbytery, but urged Paddy to accept it for himself and Frank. Where the two stockmenand Tom, the garden roustabout, stayed no one knew, but Mrs. Smith, Minnie and Cat had friends in Gilly whoput them up. It was ten in the morning when Paddy deposited his sister in the best room the Hotel Imperial had tooffer; he made his way down to the bar and found Frank standing at it, a schooner461 of beer in his hand.
"Let me buy the next one, old man," Paddy said genially462 to his son. "I've got to take Auntie Mary to the PicnicRaces luncheon463, and I need moral sustenance464 if I'm going to get through the ordeal465 without Mum." Habit andawe are harder to overcome than people realize until they actually try to circumvent466 the conduct of years; Frankfound he could not do what he longed to do, he could not throw the contents of his glass in his father's face, notin front of a bar crowd. So he downed what was left of his beer at a gulp467, smiled a little sickly and said, "Sorry,Daddy, I've promised to meet some blokes down at the showground.""Well, off you go, then. But here, take this and spend it on yourself. Have a good time, and if you get drunkdon't let your mother find out." Frank stared at the crisp blue five-pound note in his hand, longing to tear it intoshreds and fling them in Paddy's face, but custom won again; he folded it, put it in his fob pocket and thanked hisfather. He couldn't get out of the bar quickly enough.
In his best blue suit, waistcoat buttoned, gold watch secured by a gold chain and a weight made from a nuggetoff the Lawrence goldfields, Paddy tugged at his celluloid collar and looked down the bar for a face he mightrecognize. He had not been into Gilly very often during the nine months since he arrived on Drogheda, but hisposition as Mary Carson's brother and heir apparent meant that he had been treated very hospitably468 whenever hehad been in town, and that his face was well remembered. Several men beamed at him, voices offered to shouthim a beer, and he was soon in the middle of a comfortable little crowd; Frank was forgotten.
Meggie's hair was braided these days, no nun430 being willing (in spite of Mary Carson's money) to attend to itscurling, and it lay in two thick cables over her shoulders, tied with navy-blue ribbons. Clad in the sober navy-blue uniform of a Holy Cross student, she was escorted across the lawn from the convent to the presbytery by anun and handed over to Father Ralph's housekeeper, who adored her.
"Och, it's the wee bairn's bonnie Hielan' hair," she explained to the priest once when he questioned her, amused;Annie wasn't given to liking little girls, and had deplored470 the presbytery's proximity471 to the school. "Come now,Annie! Hair's inanimate; you can't like someone just because of the color of her hair," he said, to tease her.
"Ah, week she's a puir wee lassie-skeggy, ye ken66."He didn't ken at all, but he didn't ask her what "skeggy" meant, either, or pass any remarks about the fact that itrhymed with Meggie. Sometimes it was better not to know what Annie meant, or encourage her by paying muchattention to what she said; she was, in her own parlance472, fey, and if she pitied the child he didn't want to be told itwas because of her future rather than her past.
Frank arrived, still trembling from his encounter with his father in the bar, and at a loose end.
"Come on, Meggie, I'll take you to the fair," he said, holding out his hand.
"Why don't I take you both?" Father Ralph asked, holding out his. Sandwiched between the two men sheworshipped, and hanging on to their hands for dear life, Meggie was in seventh heaven. The Gillanboneshowground lay on the banks of the Barwon River, next door to the racecourse. Though the floods were sixmonths gone, the mud had not completely dried, and the eager feet of early comers had already pulped473 it to amire. Beyond the stalls of sheep and cattle, pigs and goats, the prime and perfect livestock474 competing for prizes,lay tents full of handicrafts and cooking. They gazed at stock, cakes, crocheted475 shawls, knitted baby clothes,embroidered476 tablecloths477, cats and dogs and canaries.
On the far side of all this was the riding ring, where young equestrians478 and equestriennes cantered theirbobtailed hacks312 before judges who looked, it seemed to a giggling Meggie, rather like horses themselves. Ladyriders in magnificent serge habits perched sidesaddle on tall horses, their top hats swathed with tantalizing262 wispsof veiling. How anyone so precariously479 mounted and hatted could stay unruffled upon a horse at anything fasterthan an amble69 was beyond Meggie's imagination, until she saw one splendid creature take her prancing480 animalover a series of difficult jumps and finish as impeccable as before she started. Then the lady pricked481 her mountwith an impatient spur and cantered across the soggy ground, reining482 to a halt in front of Meggie, Frank andFather Ralph to bar their progress. The leg in its polished black boot hooked round the saddle was unhooked, andthe lady sat truly on the side of her saddle, her gloved hands extended imperiously. "Father! Be so kind as to helpme dismount!"He reached up to put his hands around her waist, her hands on his shoulders, and swung her lightly down; themoment her heels touched the ground he released her, took her mount's reins484 in his hand and walked on, the ladybeside him, matching his stride effortlessly. "Will you win the Hunting, Miss Carmichael?" he asked in tones ofutter indifference485.
She pouted486; she was young and very beautiful, and that curious impersonal487 quality of his piqued488 her. "I hope towin, but I can't be sure. Miss Hopeton and Mrs. Anthony King both compete. However, I shall win the Dressage,so if I don't win the Hunting I shan't repine."She spoke489 with beautifully rounded vowels490, and with the oddly stilted491 phraseology of a young lady so carefullyreared and educated there was not a trace ofwarmth or idiom left to color her voice. As he spoke to her Father Ralph's own speech became more pearshaped, and quite lost its beguiling492 hint of Irishness; as if she brought back to him a time when he, too, had beenlike this. Meggie frowned, puzzled and affected493 by their light but guarded words, not knowing what the changein Father Ralph was, only knowing there was a change, and not one to her liking. She let go Frank's hand, andindeed it had become difficult for them to continue walking abreast494. By the time they came to a wide puddleFrank had fallen behind them. Father Ralph's eyes danced as he surveyed the water, almost a shallow pond; heturned to the child whose hand he had kept in his firmly, and bent273 down to her with a special tenderness the ladycould not mistake, for it had been entirely496 lacking in his civil exchanges with her. "I wear no cloak, darlingMeggie, so I can't be your Sir Walter Raleigh. I'm sure you'll excuse me, my dear Miss Carmichael"-the reinswere passed to the lady. I can't permit my favorite girl to muddy her shoes, now can I?" He picked Meggie upand tucked her easily against his hip171, leaving Miss Carmichael to collect her heavy trailing skirts in one hand, thereins in her other, and splash her way across unaided. The sound of Frank's hoot349 of laugher just behind themdidn't improve her temper; on the far side of the puddle495 she left them abruptly.
"I do believe she'd kill you if she could," Frank said as Father Ralph put Meggie down. He was fascinated bythis encounter and by Father Ralph's deliberate cruelty. She had seemed to Frank so beautiful and so haughty497 thatno man could gainsay498 her, even a priest, yet Father Ralph had wantonly set out to shatter her faith in herself, inthat heady femininity she wielded like a weapon. As if the priest hated her and what she stood for, Frank thought,the world of women, an exquisite mystery ,he had never had the opportunity to plumb499. Smarting from hismother's words, he had wanted Miss Carmichael to notice him, the oldest son of Mary Carson's heir, but she hadnot so much as deigned500 to admit he existed. All her attention had been focused on the priest, a being sexless andemasculated. Even if he was tall, dark and handsome. "Don't worry, she'll be back for more of the same," saidFather Ralph cynically501. "She's rich, so next Sunday she'll very ostentatiously put a ten-pound note in the plate."He laughed at Frank's expression. "I'm not so much older than you, my son, but in spite of my calling I'm a veryworldly fellow. Don't hold it against me; just put it down to experience." They had left the riding ring behind andentered the amusement part of the grounds. To Meggie and Frank alike it was enchantment502. Father Ralph hadgiven Meggie five whole shillings, and Frank had his five pounds; to own the price of admission to all thoseenticing booths was wonderful. Crowds thronged the area, children running everywhere, gazing wide-eyed at theluridly and somewhat inexpertly painted legends fronting tattered504 tents: The Fattest Lady in the World; PrincessHouri the Snake Dancer (see Her Fan the Flames of a Cobra's Rage!); The India Rubber Man; Goliath theWorld's Strongest Man; Thetis the Mermaid505. At each they paid their pennies and watched raptly, not noticingThetis's sadly tarnished506 scales or the toothless smile on the cobra. At the far end, so big it required a whole sidefor itself, was a giant marquee with a high boardwalk along its front, a curtainlike frieze507 of painted figuresstretching behind the entire length of the board bridge, menacing the crowd. A man with a megaphone in hishand was shouting to the gathering223 people.
"Here it is, gents, Jimmy Sharman's famous boxing troupe508! Eight of the world's greatest prize fighters, and apurse to be won by any chap game to have a go!"Women and girls were trickling509 out of the audience as fast as men and boys came from every direction to swellit, clustering thickly beneath the boardwalk. As solemnly as gladiators parading at the Circus Maximus, eightmen filed onto the bridge and stood, bandaged hands on hips510, legs apart, swaggering at the admiring oohs of thecrowd. Meggie thought they were wearing underclothes, for they were clad in long black tights and vests withclosely fitting grey trunks from waists to midthighs. On their chests, big white Roman capitals said JIMMYSHARMAN'S TROUPE. NO two were the same size, some big, some small, some in between, but they were allof particularly fine physique. Chatting and laughing to each other in an offhand511 manner that suggested this wasan everyday occurrence, they flexed512 their muscles and tried to pretend they weren't enjoying strutting513.
"Come on, chaps, who'll take a glove?" the spruiker was braying514. "Who wants to have a go? Take a glove, win afiver!" he kept yelling between the booms of a bass138 drum.
"I will!" Frank shouted. "I will, I will!"He shook off Father Ralph's restraining hand as those around them in the throng who could see Frank'sdiminutive size began to laugh and good-naturedly push him to the front.
But the spruiker was very serious as one of the troupe extended a friendly hand and pulled Frank up the ladderto stand at one side of the eight already on the bridge. "Don't laugh, gents. He's not very big but he is the first tovolunteer! It isn't the size of the dog in the fight, you know, it's the size of the fight in the dog! Come on now,here's this little bloke game to try-what about some of you big blokes, eh? Put on a glove and win a fiver, go thedistance with one of Jimmy Sharman's troupe!"Gradually the ranks of the volunteers increased, the young men self-consciously clutching their hats and eyeingthe professionals who stood, a band of elite515 beings, alongside them. Dying to stay and see what happened, FatherRalph reluctantly decided it was more than time he removed Meggie from the vicinity, so he picked her up andturned on his heel to leave. Meggie began to scream, and the farther away he got, the louder she screamed;people were beginning to look at them, and he was so well known it was very embarrassing, not to mentionundignified. "Now look, Meggie, I can't take you in there! Your father would flay516 me alive, and rightly!""I want to stay with Frank, I want to stay with Frank!" she howled at the top of her voice, kicking and trying tobite.
"Oh, shit!" said Father Ralph.
Yielding to the inevitable517, he dug into his pocket for the required coins and approached the open flap of themarquee, one eye cocked for any of the Cleary boys; but they were nowhere to be seen, so he presumed theywere safely trying their luck with the horseshoes or gorging518 themselves on meat pies and ice cream.
"You can't take her in there, Father!" the foreman said, shocked. Father Ralph lifted his eyes heavenward. "Ifyou'll only tell me how we can get her away from here without the entire Gilly police force arresting us formolesting a child, I'll gladly go! But her brother volunteered and she's not about to leave her brother without afight that will make your chaps look like amateurs!"The foreman shrugged. "Well, Father, I can't argue with you, can I? In you go, but keep her out of the way, forah-pity's sake. No, no, Father, put your money back in your pocket; Jimmy wouldn't like it."The tent seemed full of men and boys, milling around a central ring; Father Ralph found a place at the back ofthe crowd against the canvas wall, hanging on to Meggie for dear life. The air was foggy from tobacco smokeand redolent with sawdust they had thrown down to absorb the mud. Frank, gloves already on his hands, was thefirst challenger of the day.
Though it was unusual, it was not unknown for a man out of the crowd to last the distance against one of theprofessional boxers520. Admittedly they weren't the best in the world, but they did include some of the best inAustralia. Put up against a flyweight because of his size, Frank knocked him out with the third punch he threw,and offered to fight someone else. By the time, he was on his third professional the word had got around, and thetent was so jammed they could not fit another eager spectator inside. He had hardly been touched by a glove, thefew blows he had taken only provoking his ever-smoldering rage. He was wild-eyed, almost spitting in passion,each of his opponents wearing Paddy's face, the yells and cheers of the crowd throbbing in his head like a vastsingle voice chanting Go! Go! Go! Oh, how he had ached for the chance to fight, denied him since coming toDrogheda! For to fight was the only way he knew of ridding himself of anger and pain, and as he landed thefelling punch he thought the great dull voice in his ears changed its song, to Kill! Kill! Kill! Then they put himwith one of the real champions, a lightweight under orders to keep Frank at a distance and find out if he couldbox as well as he could punch. Jimmy Sharman's eyes were shining. He was always on the lookout521 forchampions, and these little country shows had yielded several. The lightweight did as he was told, hard-pressedin spite of his superior reach, while Frank, so possessed by his hunger to kill that dancing, elusive522 figure he sawnothing else, went after him. He learned with every clinch523 and flurry of blows, one of those strange people whoeven in the midst of titanic524 rake still can think. And he lasted the distance, in spite of the punishment those expertfists had meted525 out; his eye was swelling526, his brow and lip cut. But he had won twenty pounds, and the respect ofevery man present. Meggie wriggled527 from Father Ralph's slackened clasp and bolted from the tent before hecould catch hold of her. When he found her outside she had been sick, and was trying to clean her splatteredshoes with a tiny handkerchief. Silently he gave her his own, stroking her bright, sobbing529 head. The atmosphereinside had not agreed with his gorge530 either, and he wished the dignity of his calling permitted him the relief ofreleasing it in public.
"Do you want to wait for Frank, or would you rather we went now?" "I'll wait for Frank," she whispered,leaning against his side, so grateful for his calmness and sympathy.
"I wonder why you tug145 so at my nonexistent heart?" he mused469, deeming her too sick and miserable to listen butneeding to voice his thoughts aloud, as do so many people who lead a solitary531 life. "You don't remind me of mymother and I never had a sister, and I wish I knew what it was about you and your wretched family . . . . Haveyou had a. hard life, my little Meggie?" Frank came out of the tent, a piece of sticking plaster over his eye,dabbing at his torn lip. For the first time since Father Ralph had met him, he looked happy; the way most mendid after what one knew was a good night in bed with a woman, thought the priest.
"What's Meggie doing here?" he snarled532, not quite down from the exaltation of the ring.
"Short of binding534 her hand and foot, not to mention gagging her, there was no way I could keep her out," saidFather Ralph tartly535, not pleased at having to justify536 himself, but not sure Frank wouldn't have a go at him, too. Hewasn't in the least afraid of Frank, but he was afraid of creating a scene in public. "She was frightened for you,Frank; she wanted to be near enough to you to see for herself that you were all right. Don't be angry with her;she's upset enough already.""Don't you dare let Daddy know you were within a mile of this place," Frank said to Meggie.
"Do you mind if we cut the rest of our tour short?" the priest asked. "I think we could all do with a rest and acup of tea at the presbytery." He pinched the tip of Meggie's nose. "And you, young lady, could do with a goodwash."Paddy had had a tormenting537 day with his sister, at her beck and call in a way Fee never demanded, helping herpick her fastidious, cross-patch way through the Gilly mud in imported guipure lace shoes, smiling and chattingwith the people she greeted royally, standing by her side as she presented the emerald bracelet539 to the winner ofthe principal race, the Gillanbone Trophy540. Why they had to spend all the prize money on a woman's trinketinstead of handing over a gold-plated cup and a nice bundle of cash was beyond him, for he did not understandthe keenly amateur nature of the race meeting, the inference that the people who entered horses didn't needvulgar money, instead could carelessly toss the winnings to the little woman. Horry Hopeton, whose bay geldingKing Edward had won the emerald bracelet, already possessed a ruby541, a diamond and a sapphire542 bracelet fromother years; he had a wife and five daughters and said he couldn't stop until he had won six bracelets543.
Paddy's starched544 shirt and celluloid collar chafed546, the blue suit was too hot, and the exotic Sydney seafood547 theyhad served with champagne548 at luncheon had not agreed with his mutton-inured digestion549. And he had felt a fool,thought he looked a fool. Best though it was, his suit smacked550 of cheap tailoring and bucolic551 unfashionableness.
They were not his kind of people, the bluff552 tweedy graziers, the lofty matrons, the toothy, horsy young women,the cream of what the Bulletin called "the squattocracy." For they were doing their best to forget the days in thelast century when they had squatted on the land and taken vast tracts553 of it for their own, had it tacitlyacknowledged as their own with federation554 and the arrival of home rule. They had become the most envied groupof people on the continent, ran their own political party, sent their children to exclusive Sydney schools,hobnobbed with the visiting Prince of Wales. He, plain Paddy Cleary, was a workingman. He had absolutelynothing in common with these colonial aristocrats556, who reminded him of his wife's family too much for comfort.
So when he came into the presbytery lounge to find Frank, Meggie and Father Ralph relaxed around the fire andlooking as if they had spent a wonderful, carefree day, it irritated him. He had missed Fee's genteel supportunbearably and he still disliked his sister as much as he had back in his early childhood in Ireland. Then henoticed the sticking plaster over Frank's eye, the swollen face; it was a heaven-sent excuse. "And how do youthink you're going to face your mother looking like that?" he yelled. "Not a day out of my sight and you're backat it again, picking fights with anyone who looks at you sideways!"Startled, Father Ralph jumped to his feet with a soothing557 noise half-uttered; but Frank was quicker.
"I earned myself money with this!" he said very softly, pointing to the plaster. "Twenty pounds for a fewminutes' work, better wages than Auntie Mary pays you and me combined in a month! I knocked out three goodboxers and lasted the distance with a lightweight champion in Jimmy Sharman's tent this afternoon. And I earnedmyself twenty pounds. It may not fit in with your ideas of what I ought to do, but this afternoon I earned therespect of every man present!""A few tired, punch-drunk old has-beens at a country show, and you're full of it? Grow up, Frank! I know youcan't grow any more in body, but you might make an effort for your mother's sake to grow in mind!" Thewhiteness of Frank's face! Like bleached bones.
It was the most terrible insult a man could offer him, and this was his father; he couldn't strike back. Hisbreathing started coming from the bottom of his chest with the effort of keeping his hands by his sides. "No hasbeens,Daddy. You know who Jimmy Sharman is as well as I do. And Jimmy Sharman himself said I had aterrific future as a boxer519; he wants to take me into his troupe and train me. And he wants to pay me! I may notgrow any bigger, but I'm big enough to lick any man ever born-and that goes for you, too, you stinking558 old he-goat!"The inference behind the epithet was not lost on Paddy; he went as white as his son. "Don't you dare call methat!""What else are you? You're disgusting, you're worse than a ram46 in rut! Couldn't you leave her alone, couldn'tyou keep your hands off her?" "No, no, no!" Meggie screamed. Father Ralph's hands bit into her shoulders likeclaws and held her painfully against him. The tears poured down her face, she twisted to free herself franticallyand vainly. "No, Daddy, no! Oh, Frank, please! Please, please!" she shrilled559.
But the only one who heard her was Father Ralph. Frank and Paddy faced each other, the dislike and the fear,each for the other, admitted at last. The dam of mutual560 love for Fee was breached561 and the bitter rivalry562 for Feeacknowledged.
"I am her husband. It is by God's grace we are blessed with our children," said Paddy more calmly, fighting forcontrol.
"You're no better than a shitty old dog after any bitch you can stick your thing into!""And you're no better than the shitty old dog who fathered you, whoever he was! Thank God I never had a handin it!" shouted Paddy, and stopped. "Oh, dear Jesus!" His rage quit him like a howling wind, he sagged andshriveled and his hands plucked at his mouth as if to tear out the tongue which had uttered the unutterable. "Ididn't mean it, I didn't mean it! 1 didn't mean it!" The moment the words were out Father Ralph let go of Meggieand grabbed Frank. He had Frank's right arm twisted behind him, his own left arm around Frank's neck,throttling him. And he was strong, the grip paralyzing; Frank fought to be free of him, then suddenly hisresistance flagged and he shook his head in submission563. Meggie had fallen to the floor and knelt there, weeping,her eyes going from her brother to her father in helpless, beseeching564 agony. She didn't understand what hadhappened, but she knew it meant she couldn't keep them both.
"You meant it," Frank croaked565. "I must always have known it! I must always have known it." He tried to turnhis head to Father Ralph. "Let me go, Father. I won't touch him; so help me God I won't.""So help you God? God rot your souls, both of you! If you've ruined the child I'll kill you!" the priest roared,the only one angry now. "Do you realize I had to keep her here to listen to this, for fear if I took her away you'dkill each other while I was gone? I ought to have let you do it, you miserable, self-centered cretins!""It's all right, I'm going," Frank said in a strange, empty voice. "I'm going to join Jimmy Sharman's troupe, and Iwon't be back.""You've got to come back!" Paddy whispered. "What can I tell your mother? You mean more to her than therest of us put together. She'll never forgive me!""Tell her I went to join Jimmy Sharman because I want to be someone. It's the truth.""What I said-it wasn't true, Frank."Frank's alien black eyes flashed scornfully, the eyes the priest had wondered at the first time he saw them; whatwere grey-eyed Fee and blue-eyed Paddy doing with a black-eyed son? Father Ralph knew hisMendelian laws, and didn't think even Fee's greyness made it possible. Frank picked up his hat and coat. "Oh, itwas true! I must always have known it. The memories of Mum playing her spinet in a room you could neverhave owned! The feeling you hadn't always been there, that you came after me. That she was mine first." Helaughed soundlessly. "And to think all these years I've blamed you for dragging her down, when it was me. Itwas me!" "It was no one, Frank, no one!" the priest cried, trying to pull him back. "It's a part of God's greatunfathomable plan; think of it like that!" Frank shook off the detaining hand and walked to the door with hislight, deadly, tiptoed gait. He was born to be a boxer, thought Father Ralph in some detached corner of his brain,that cardinal's brain. "God's great unfathomable plan!" mocked the young man's voice from the door. "You're nobetter than a parrot when you act the priest, Father de Bricassart! I say God help you, because you're the only oneof us here who has no idea what he really is!"Paddy was sitting in a chair, ashen566, his shocked eyes on Meggie as she huddled on her knees by the fire,weeping and rocking herself back and forth357. He got up to go to her, but Father Ralph pushed him roughly away.
"Leave her alone. You've done enough! There's whiskey in the sideboard; take some. I'm going to put the child tobed, but I'll be back to talk to you, so don't go. Do you hear me, man?""I'll be here, Father. Put her to bed."Upstairs in the charming apple-green bedroom the priest unbuttoned the little girl's dress and chemise, made hersit on the edge of the bed so he could pull off her shoes and stockings. Her nightdress lay on the pillow whereAnnie had left it; he tugged it over her head and decently down before he removed her drawers. And all the whilehe talked to her about nothing, silly stories of buttons refusing to come undone567, and shoes stubbornly stayingtied, and ribbons that would not come off. It was impossible to tell if she heard him; with their unspoken tales ofinfant tragedies, of troubles and pains beyond her years, the eyes stared drearily568 past his shoulder. "Now liedown, my darling girl, and try to go to sleep. I'll be back in a little while to see you, so don't worry, do you hear?
We'll talk about it then.""Is she all right?" asked Paddy as he came back into the lounge. Father Ralph reached for the whiskey bottlestanding on the sideboard, and poured a tumbler half full.
"I don't honestly know. God in heaven, Paddy, I wish I knew which is an Irishman's greater curse, the drink orthe temper. What possessed you to say that? No, don't even bother answering! The temper. It's true, of course. Iknew he wasn't yours the moment I first saw him.""There's not much misses you, is there?""I suppose not. However, it doesn't take much more than very ordinary powers of observation to see when thevarious members of my parish are troubled, or in pain. And having seen, it is my duty to do what I can to help.""You're very well liked in Gilly, Father.""For which no doubt I may thank my face and my figure," said the priest bitterly, unable to make it sound aslight as he had intended. "Is that what you think? I can't agree, Father. We like you because you're a goodpastor.""Well, I seem to be thoroughly569 embroiled570 in your troubles, at any rate," said Father Ralph uncomfortably.
"You'd best get it off your chest, man." Paddy stared into the fire, which he had built up to the proportions of afurnace while the priest was putting Meggie to bed, in an excess of remorse571 and frantic1921-1928 RALPH to be doing something. The empty glass in his hand shook in a series of rapid jerks; FatherRalph got up for the whiskey bottle and replenished572 it. After a long draft Paddy sighed, wiping the forgotten tearsfrom his face. "I don't know who Frank's father is. It happened before I met Fee. Her people are practically NewZealand's first family socially, and her father had a big wheat-and-sheep property outside Ashburton in the SouthIsland. Money was no object, and Fee was his only daughter. As I understand it, he'd planned her life for her-atrip to the old country, a debut573 at court, the right husband. She had never lifted a hand in the house, of course.
They had maids and butlers and horses and big carriages; they lived like lords. "I was the dairy hand, andsometimes I used to see Fee in the distance, walking with a little boy about eighteen months old. The next thing,old James Armstrong came to see me. His daughter, he said, had disgraced the family; she wasn't married andshe had a child. It hale been hushed up, of course, but when they tried to get her away her grandmother madesuch a fuss they had no choice but to keep her on the place, in spite of the awkwardness. Now the grandmotherwas dying, there was nothing to stop them getting rid of Fee and her child. I was a single man, James said; if I'dmarry her and guarantee to take her out of the South Island, they'd pay our traveling expenses and an additionalfive hundred pounds. "Well, Father, it was a fortune to me, and I was tired of the single life. But I was always soshy I was never any good with the girls. It seemed like a good idea to me, and I honestly didn't mind the child.
The grandmother got wind of it and sent for me, even though she was very ill. She was a tartar in her day, I'll bet,but a real lady. She told me a bit about Fee, but she didn't say who the father was, and I didn't like to ask.
Anyway, she made me promise to be good to Fee she knew they'd have Fee off the place the minute she wasdead, so she had suggested to James that they find Fee a husband. I felt sorry for the poor old thing; she wasterribly fond of Fee.
"Would you believe, Father, that the first time I was ever close enough to Fee to say hello to her was the day Imarried her?" "Oh, I'd believe it," the priest said under his breath. He looked at the liquid in his glass, thendrained it and reached for the bottle, filling both glasses. "So you married a lady far above you, Paddy.""Yes. I was frightened to death of her at first. She was so beautiful in those days, Father, and so . . . out of it, ifyou know what I mean. As if she wasn't even there, as if it was all happening to someone else." "She's stillbeautiful, Paddy," said Father Ralph gently. "I can see in Meggie what she must have been like before she beganto age.""It hasn't been an easy life for her, Father, but I don't know what else I could have done. At least with me shewas safe, and not abused. It took me two years to get up the courage to be-well, a real husband to her. I had toteach her to cook, to sweep a floor, wash and iron clothes. She didn't know how.
"And never once in all the years we've been married, Father, has she ever complained, or laughed, or cried. It'sonly in the most private part of our life together that she ever displays any feeling, and even then she neverspeaks. I hope she will, yet I don't want her to, because I always have the idea if she did, it would be his nameshe'd say. Oh, I don't mean she doesn't like me, or our children. But I love her so much, and it just seems to meshe hasn't got that sort of feeling left in her. Except for Frank. I've always known she loved Frank more than therest of us put together. She must have loved his father. But I don't know a thing about the man, who he was, whyshe couldn't marry him."Father Ralph looked down at his hands, blinking.
"Oh, Paddy, what hell it is to be alive! Thank God I haven't the courage to try more than the fringe of it."Paddy got up, rather unsteadily. "Well, I've done it now, Father, haven't I? I've sent Frank away, and Fee willnever forgive me.""You can't tell her, Paddy. No, you mustn't tell her, ever. Just tell her Frank ran away with the boxers and leaveit at that. She knows how restless Frank's been; she'll believe you.""I couldn't do that, Father!" Paddy was aghast. "You've got to, Paddy. Hasn't she known enough pain andmisery? Don't heap more on her head." And to himself he thought: Who knows? Maybe she'll learn to give thelove she has for Frank to you at last, to you and the little thing upstairs.
"You really think that, Father?""I do. What happened tonight must go no further.""But what about Meggie? She heard it all.""Don't worry about Meggie, I'll take care of her. I don't think she understood more of what went on than thatyou and Frank quarreled. I'll make her see that with Frank gone, to tell her mother of the quarrel would only bean additional grief. Besides, I have a feeling Meggie doesn't tell her mother much to begin with." He got up. "Goto bed, Paddy. You've got to seem normal and dance attendance on Mary tomorrow, remember?" Meggie wasnot asleep; she was lying with eyes wide in the dim light of the little lamp beside her bed. The priest sat downbeside her and noticed her hair still in its braids. Carefully he untied574 the navy ribbons and pulled gently until thehair lay in a rippling, molten sheet across the pillow. "Frank has gone away, Meggie," he said.
"I know, Father.""Do you know why, darting575?""He had a fight with Daddy.""What are you going to do?""I'm going to go with Frank. He needs me.""You can't, my Meggie.""Yes, I can. I was going to find him tonight, but my legs wouldn't hold me up, and I don't like the dark. But inthe morning I'll look for him." "No, Meggie, you mustn't. You see, Frank's got his own life to lead, and it's timehe went away. I know you don't want him to go away, but he's been wanting to go for a long time. You mustn'tbe selfish; you've got to let him live his own life." The monotony of repetition, he thought, keep on drumming itin. "When we grow up it's natural and right for us to want a life away from the home we grew up in, and Frank isa grown man. He ought to have his own home now, his own wife and family. Do you see that, Meggie? The fightbetween your daddy and Frank was only a sign of Frank's wanting to go. It didn't happen because they don't likeeach other. It happened because that's the way a lot of young men leave home, it's a sort of excuse. The fight wasjust an excuse for Frank to do what he's been wanting to do for a long time, an excuse for Frank to leave. Do youunderstand that, my Meggie?" Her eyes shifted to his face and rested there. They were so exhausted576, so full ofpain, so old. "I know," she said. "I know. Frank wanted to go away when I was a little girl, and he didn't go.
Daddy brought him back and made him stay with us.""But this time Daddy isn't going to bring him back, because Daddy can't make him stay now. Frank has gonefor good, Meggie. He isn't coming back." "Won't I ever see him again?""I don't know," he answered honestly. "I'd like to say of course you will, but no one can predict the future,Meggie, even priests." He drew a breath. "You mustn't tell Mum there was a fight, Meggie, do you hear me? Itwould upset her very much, and she isn't well.""Because there's going to be another baby?""What do you know about that?""Mum likes growing babies; she's done it a lot. And she grows such nice babies, Father, even when she isn'twell. I'm going to grow one like Hal myself, then I won't miss Frank so much, will I?" "Parthenogenesis," hesaid. "Good luck, Meggie. Only what if you don't manage to grow one?""I've still got Hal," she said sleepily, nestling down. Then she said, "Father, will you go away, too? Will you?""One day, Meggie. But not soon, I think, so don't worry. I have a feeling I'm going to be stuck in Gilly for along, long time," answered the priest, his eyes bitter.
There was no help for it, Meggie had to come home. Fee could not manage without her, and the moment he wasleft alone at the convent in Gilly, Stuart went on a hunger strike, so he too came back to Drogheda. It wasAugust, and bitterly cold. Just a year since they had arrived in Australia; but this was a colder winter than last.
The rain was absent and the air was so crisp it hurt the lungs. Up on the tops of the Great Divide three hundredmiles to the east, snow lay thicker than in many years, but no rain had fallen west of Burren Junction577 since themonsoonal drenching of the previous summer. People in Gilly were speaking of another drought: it was overdue,it must come, perhaps this would be it. When Meggie saw her mother, she felt as if an awful weight settled uponher being; maybe a leaving-behind of childhood, a presentiment578 of what it was to be a woman. Outwardly therewas no change, aside from the big belly; but inwardly Fee had slowed down like a tired old clock, running timedown and down until it was forever stilled. The briskness579 Meggie had never known absent from her mother hadgone. She picked her feet up and put them down again as if she was no longer sure of the right way to do it, asort of spiritual fumbling580 got into her gait; and there was no joy in her for the coming baby, not even the rigidlycontrolled content she had shown over Hal. That little red-haired fellow was toddling582 all over the house,constantly into everything, but Fee made no attempt to discipline him, or even supervise his activities. Sheplodded in her self-perpetuating circle of stove, worktable and sink as if nothing else existed. So Meggie had nochoice; she simply filled the vacuum in the child's life and became his mother. It wasn't any sacrifice, for sheloved him dearly and found him a helpless, willing target for all the love she was beginning to want to lavish onsome human creature. He cried for her, he spoke her name before all others, he lifted his arms to her to be pickedup; it was so satisfying it filled her with joy. In spite of the drudgery583, the knitting and mending and sewing, thewashing, the ironing, the hens, all the other jobs she had to do, Meggie found her life very pleasant.
No one ever mentioned Frank, but every six weeks Fee would lift her head when she heard the mail call, and fora while be animated584. Then Mrs. Smith would bring in their share of whatever had come, and when it containedno letter from Frank the small burst of painful interest would die. There were two new lives in the house. Feewas delivered of twins, two more tiny red-haired Cleary boys, christened James and Patrick. The dearest littlefellows, with their father's sunny disposition and his sweetness of nature, they became common propertyimmediately they were born, for "beyond giving them milk Fee took no interest in them. Soon their names wereshortened to Jims and Patsy; they were prime favorites with the women up at the big house, the two spinstermaids and the widowed childless housekeeper, who were starved for the deliciousness of babies. It was mademagically easy for Fee to forget them-they had three very eager mothers-and as time went on it became theaccepted thing that they should spend most of their waking hours up at the big house. Meggie just didn't havetime to take them under her wing as well as managing Hal, who was extremely possessive. Not for him theawkward, unpracticed blandishments of Mrs. Smith, Minnie and Cat. Meggie was the loving nucleus587 of Hal'sworld; he wanted no one but Meggie, he would have no one but Meggie.
Bluey Williams traded in his lovely draft horses and his massive dray for a truck and the mail came every fourweeks instead of every six, but there was never a word from Frank. And gradually his memory slipped a little, asmemories do, even those with so much love attached to them; as if there is an unconscious healing processwithin the mind which mends up in spite of our desperate determination never to forget. To Meggie, an achingfading of the way Frank had looked, a blurring588 of the beloved lineaments to some fuzzy, saintlike image no morerelated to the real Frank than a holy picture Christ to what must have been the Man. And to Fee, from out ofthose silent depths in which she had stilled the evolution of her soul, a substitution. It came about sounobtrusively that no one noticed. For Fee kept herself folded up with quietness, and a totalundemonstrativeness; the substitution was an inner thing no one had time to see, except the new object of herlove, who made no outward sign. It was a hidden, unspoken thing between them, something to buffer590 theirloneliness.
Perhaps it was inevitable, for of all her children Stuart was the only one like her. At fourteen he was as big amystery to his father and brothers as Frank had been, but unlike Frank he engendered591 no hostility592, no irritation593.
He did as he was told without complaint, worked as hard as anyone and created absolutely no ripples594 in the poolof Cleary life. Though his hair was red he was the darkest of all the boys, more mahogany, and his eyes were asclear as pale water in the shade, as if they reached all the way back in time to the very beginning, and saweverything as it really was. He was also the only one of Paddy's sons who promised adult handsomeness, thoughprivately Meggie thought her Hal would outshine him when it came his turn to grow up. No one ever knew whatStuart was thinking; like Fee, he spoke little and never aired an opinion. And he had a curious knack595 of beingutterly still, as still within himself as he was in body, and to Meggie, closest to him in age, it seemed he could gosomewhere no one else could ever follow. Father Ralph expressed it another way. "That lad isn't human!" he hadexclaimed the day he dumped a hunger-striking Stuart back at Drogheda after he was left at the convent minusMeggie. "Did he say he wanted to go home? Did he say he missed Meggie? No! He just stopped eating andpatiently waited for the reason why to sink into our thick skulls596. Not once did he open his mouth to complain,and when I marched up to him and yelled did he want to go home, he simply smiled at me and nodded!"But as time went on it was tacitly assumed that Stuart would not go out into the paddocks to work with Paddyand the other boys, even though in age he might have. Stu would remain on guard at the house, chop the wood,take care of the vegetable garden, do the milking-the huge number of duties the women had no time for withthree babies in the house. It was prudent597 to have a man about the place, albeit598 a half-grown one; it gave proof ofother men close by. For there were visitors-the clump of strange boots up the plank steps to the back veranda, astrange voice saying: "Hullo, Missus, got a bit of tucker for a man?" The Outback had swarms599 of them, swagmenhumping their blueys from station to station, down from Queensland and up from Victoria, men who had losttheir luck or were chary600 of holding a regular job, preferring to tramp on foot thousands of miles in search of onlythey knew what. Mostly they were decent fellows, who appeared, ate a huge meal, packed a bit of donated teaand sugar and flour in the folds of their blueys, then disappeared down the track headed for Barcoola orNarrengang, battered old billycans bouncing, skinny dogs belly down behind them. Australian itinerants601 rarelyrode; they walked.
Occasionally a bad man would come, on the lookout for women whose men were away; with a view to robbery,not rape324. Thus Fee kept a shotgun standing loaded in a corner of the kitchen where the babies couldn't get to it,and made sure she was closer to it than her visitor until her expert eye assessed his character. After Stuart wasofficially allotted602 the house as his domain603, Fee passed the shotgun to him gladly.
Not all the visitors were swaggies, though they were in the majority; there was the Watkins man in his oldmodel-T, for instance. He carried everything from horse liniment to fragrant604 soap unlike the rock-hard stuff Feemade in the laundry copper335 from fat and caustic605; he had lavender water and eau de cologne, powders and creamsfor sun-dried faces. There were certain things one never dreamed of buying from anyone but the Watkins man;like his ointment606, better by far than any drugstore or prescription607 salve, capable of healing anything from a rentin the side of a work dog to an ulcer608 on a human shin. The women would crowd around in every kitchen hevisited, waiting eagerly for him to pop open his big suitcase of wares609. And there were other salesmen, lessregular patrollers of the back-blocks than the Watkins man but equally welcome, hawking610 everything fromtailor-made cigarettes and fancy pipes to whole bolts of material, sometimes even luridly503 seductive underwearand lavishly611 beribboned stays. They were so starved, these women of the Outback, limited to maybe one or twotrips a year into the nearest town, far from the brilliant shops of Sydney, far from fashions and femininefurbelows.
Life seemed mostly flies and dust. There had not been any rain in a long time, even a sprinkle to settle the dustand drown the flies; for the less rain, the more flies, the more dust.
Every ceiling was festooned with long, lazily spinning helixes of sticky flypaper, black with bodies within a dayof being tacked612 up. Nothing could be left uncovered for a moment without becoming either an orgy or agraveyard for the flies, and tiny speckles of fly dirt dewed the furniture, the walls, the Gillanbone General Storecalendar.
And oh, the dust! There was no getting away from it, that fine-grained brown powder which seeped614 into eventightly lidded containers, dulled freshly washed hair, made the skin gritty, lay in the folds of clothes and curtains,smeared a film across polished tables which resettled the moment it was whisked away. The floors were thickwith it, from carelessly wiped boots and the hot dry wind drifting it through the open doors and windows; Feewas forced to roll up her Persian carpets in the parlor and have Stuart nail down linoleum615 she bought sightunseen from the store in Gilly. The kitchen, which took most of the traffic from outside, was floored in teakplanks bleached to the color of old bones by endless scrubbing with a wire brush and lye soap. Fee and Meggiewould strew32 it with sawdust Stuart carefully collected from the woodheap, sprinkle the sawdust with preciousparticles of water and sweep the damp, pungent-fragrant mess away out of doors, down off the veranda onto thevegetable garden, there to decompose616 itself to humus.
But nothing kept the dust at bay for long, and after a while the creek dried up to a string of waterholes, so thatthere was no water to be pumped up from it to kitchen or bathroom. Stuart took the tank truck out to theborehead and brought it back full, emptied it into one of the spare rain tanks, and the women had to get used to adifferent kind of horrible water on dishes and clothes and bodies, worse than muddy creek water. The rank,sulphur-smelling minerally stuff had to be wiped off dishes scrupulously617, and made the hair dull and coarse, likestraw. What little rain water they had was used strictly for drinking and cooking.
Father Ralph watched Meggie tenderly. She was brushing Patsy's curly red head, Jims standing obediently but alittle rockily waiting for his turn, both pairs of bright blue eyes turned up to her adoringly. Just like a tiny mother,she was. It had to be a thing born in them, he mused, that peculiar72 obsession women had for infants, else at herage she would have regarded it as a duty rather than pure pleasure, and been off to do something more alluring618 asfast as she could. Instead she was deliberately prolonging the process, crimping Patsy's hair between her fingersto shape waves out of its unruliness. For a while the priest was charmed with her activity, then he whacked619 theside of his dusty boot with his crop and stared moodily620 off the veranda toward the big house, hidden by its ghostgums and vines, the profusion621 of station buildings and pepper trees which lay between its isolation and this hubof station life, the head stockman's residence. What plot was she weaving, that old spider up there at the center ofher vast web? "Father, you're not watching!" Meggie accused him. "I'm sorry, Meggie. I was thinking." Heturned back to her as she finished with Jims; the three of them stood watching him expectantly until he bent andscooped the twins up, one on either hip. "Let's go and see your Auntie Mary, shall we?"Meggie followed him up the track carrying his crop and leading the chestnut mare; he toted the infants witheasy familiarity and seemed not to mind, though it was almost a mile from the creek to the big house. At thecookhouse he relinquished622 the twins to an ecstatic Mrs. Smith and passed on up the walkway to the main housewith Meggie by his side. Mary Carson was sitting in her wing chair. She hardly ever moved from it these days;there was not the necessity any more with Paddy so capable of overseeing things. As Father Ralph came inholding Meggie's hand, her malevolent623 gaze beat the child's down; Father Ralph felt the increase in Meggie'spulse rate and squeezed her wrist sympathetically. The little girl dropped her aunt a clumsy curtsy, murmuring aninaudible greeting. "Go to the kitchen, girl, have your tea with Mrs. Smith," said Mary Carson curtly.
"Why don't you like her?" Father Ralph asked as he sank into the chair he had come to think of as his own.
"Because you do," she answered.
"Oh, come now!" For once she made him feel at a loss. "She's just a waif, Mary.""That's not what you see in her, and you know it."The fine blue eyes rested on her sardonically625; he was more at ease. "Do you think I tamper626 with children? I am,after all, a priest!" "You're a man first, Ralph de Bricassart! Being a priest makes you feel safe, that's all."Startled, he laughed. Somehow he couldn't fence with her today; it was as if she had found the chink in hisarmor, crept inside with her spider's poison. And he was changing, growing older perhaps, becoming reconciledto obscurity in Gillanbone. The fires were dying; or was it that he burned now for other things?
"I am not a man," he said. "I am a priest.... It's the heat, maybe, the dust and the flies . . . . But I am not a man,Mary. I'm a priest." "Oh, Ralph, how you've changed!" she mocked. "Can this be Cardinal de Bricassart I hear?""It isn't possible," he said, a passing unhappiness in his eyes. "I don't think I want it anymore."She began to laugh, rocking back and forth in herchair, watching him. "Don't you, Ralph? Don't you? Well, I'll let you stew a little while longer, but your day ofreckoning is coming, never doubt it. Not yet, not for two or three years, perhaps, but it will come. I'll be like theDevil, and offer you-Enough said! But never doubt I'll make you writhe627. You're the most fascinating man I'veever met. You throw your beauty in our teeth, contemptuous of our foolishness. But I'll pin you to the wall onyour own weakness, I'll make you sell yourself like any painted whore. Do you doubt it?"He leaned back, smiling. "I don't doubt you'll try. But I don't think you know me as well as you think you do.""Do I not? Time will tell, Ralph, and only time. I'm old; I have nothing but time left to me.""And what do you think I have?" he asked. "Time, Mary, nothing but time. Time, and dust, and flies."The clouds heaped themselves in the sky, and Paddy began to hope for rain. "Dry storms," said Mary Carson.
"We won't get rain out of this. We won't get any rain for a long time."If the Clearys thought they had seen the worst that Australia could offer in the way of climatic harshness, it wasbecause they hadn't yet experienced the dry storms of drought-dogged plains. Bereft628 of soothing dampness, thedryness of the earth and the air rubbed each other raw and crackling, an irritating friction629 which built up and upand up until it could end only in a gargantuan630 dissipation of accumulated energy. The sky dropped and darkenedso much Fee had to light the lamps indoors; out in the stockyards the horses shivered and jumped at the slightestnoise; the hens sought their perches631 and sank their heads into apprehensive632 breasts; the dogs fought and snarled;the tame pigs which rooted among the rubbish of, the station dump burrowed633 their snouts into the dust andpeered out of it with bright, skittish634 eyes. Brooding forces pent in the heavens struck fear into the bones of allliving things, as the vast deep clouds swallowed the sun whole and prepared to spew solar fire over the earth.
Thunder came marching from far away with increasing tread, tiny flickers635 on the horizon cast soaring billowsinto sharp relief, crests636 of startling whiteness foamed637 and curled over midnight-blue depths. Then, with a roaringwind that sucked up the dust and flung it stinging in eyes and ears and mouths, came the cataclysm638. No longerdid they try to imagine the biblical wrath639 of God; they lived through it. No man could have kept himself fromjumping when the thunder cracked-it exploded with the noise and fury of a disintegrating640 world-but after a whilethe assembled household grew so inured to it they crept out onto the veranda and stared across the creek at thefar paddocks. Great forks of lightning stood ribbed in veins641 of fire all around the sky, dozens of bolts each andevery moment; naphtha flashes in chains streaked642 across the clouds, in and out the billows in a fantastic hideand-seek. Blasted trees alone in the grass reeked186 and smoked, and they understood at last why these lonelypaddock sentinels were dead. An eerie643, unearthly glow seeped into the air, air which was no longer invisible buton fire from within, fluorescing pink and lilac and sulphur yellow, and smelling of some hauntingly sweet,elusive perfume quite beyond recognition. The trees shimmered644, the red Cleary hair was haloed in tongues offire, the hairs of their arms stood out stiffly. And all afternoon it went on, only slowly fading into the east torelease them from its awesome17 spell at sunset, and they were excited, on edge, unappeased. Not a drop of rainhad fallen. But it was like dying and coming back to life again, to have survived the atmospheric645 tantrumunscathed; it was all they could talk about for a week.
"We'll get a lot more," said Mary Carson, bored. They did get a lot more. The second dry winter came in colderthan they had thought it could get without snow; frost settled inches thick on the ground at night, and the dogshuddled shivering in their kennels, keeping warm by gorging on kangaroo meat and mounds646 of fat from thehomestead's slaughtered647 cattle. At least the weather meant beef and pork to eat instead of the eternal mutton. Inthe house they built great roaring fires, and the men were forced to come home when they could, for at night inthe paddocks they froze. But the shearers when they arrived were in a mood for rejoicing; they could get throughfaster and sweat less. At each man's stand in the great shed was a circle of flooring much lighter648 in color than therest, the spot where fifty years of shearers had stood dripping their bleaching649 sweat into the wood of the board.
There was still grass from the flood long ago, but it was thinning ominously650. Day after day the skies wereovercast and the light dull, but it never rained. The wind howled sadly across the paddocks, spinning driftingbrown sheets of dust before it like rain, tormenting the mind with images of water. So much like rain it looked,that raggedly651 blowing dust. The children developed chilblains on their fingers, tried not to smile with crackedlips, had to peel their socks away from bleeding heels and shins. It was quite impossible to keep warm in the faceof that bitter high wind, especially when the houses had been designed to catch every stray puff653 of air, not keep itout. Going to bed in icy bedrooms, getting up in icy bedrooms, waiting patiently for Mum to spare a little hotwater from the great kettle on the hob so that washing was not a teeth-chattering, painful ordeal.
One day small Hal started to cough and wheeze654, and rapidly grew worse. Fee mixed up a gluey hot poultice ofcharcoal and spread it on his laboring655 little chest, but it seemed to give him no relief. At first she was not undulyworried, but as the day drew on he began to deteriorate656 so quickly she no longer had any idea what to do, andMeggie sat by his side wringing657 her hands, praying a wordless stream of Our Fathers and Hail Marys. WhenPaddy came in at six the child's breathing was audible from the veranda, and his lips were blue. Paddy set off atonce for the big house and the telephone, but the doctor was forty miles away and out on another case. Theyignited a pan of sulphur and held him over it in an attempt to make him cough up the membrane659 in his throatslowly choking him, but he could not manage to contract his rib87 cage enough to dislodge it. His color wasgrowing a deeper blue, his respiration660 was convulsive. Meggie sat holding him and. praying, her heart squeezedto a wedge of pain because the poor little fellow fought so for every breath. Of all the children, Hal was thedearest to her; she was his mother. Never before had she wished so desperately661 to be a grown-up mother,thinking that were she a woman like Fee, she would somehow have the power to heal him. Fee couldn't heal himbecause Fee wasn't his mother. Confused and terrified, she held the heaving little body close, trying to help Halbreathe. It never occurred to her that he might die, even when Fee and Paddy sank to their knees by the bed andprayed, not knowing what else to do. At midnight Paddy pried662 Meggie's arms from around the still child, and laidhim down tenderly against the stack of pillows.
Meggie's eyes flew open; she had half fallen to sleep, lulled663 because Hal had stopped struggling. "Oh, Daddy,he's better!" she said. Paddy shook his head; he seemed shriveled and old, the lamp picking up frosty bits in hishair, frosty bits in his week-long beard. "No, Meggie, Hal's not better in the way you mean, but he's at peace.
He's gone to God, he's out of his pain.""Daddy means he's dead," said Fee tonelessly. "Oh, Daddy, no! He can't be dead."But the small creature in the pillowed nest was dead.
Meggie knew it the moment she looked, though she had never seen death before. He looked like a doll, not achild. She got up and went out to the boys, sitting hunched664 in an uneasy vigil around the kitchen fire, with Mrs.
Smith on a hard chair nearby keeping an eye on the tiny twins, whose cot had been moved into the kitchen forwarmth.
"Hal just died," said Meggie.
Stuart looked up from a distant reverie. "It's better so," he said. "Think of the peace." He got to his feet as Feecame out of the hallway, and went to her without touching665 her. "Mum, you must be tired. Come and lie down; I'lllight a fire for you in your room. Come on now, lie down."Fee turned and followed him without a word. Bob got up and went out onto the veranda. The rest of the boyssat shuffling666 for a while and then joined him. Paddy hadn't appeared at all. Without a word Mrs. Smith took theperambulator from its corner of the veranda and carefully put the sleeping Jims and Patsy into it. She lookedacross at Meggie, tears running down her face.
"Meggie, I'm going back to the big house, and I'm taking Jims and Patsy with me. I'll be back in the morning,but it's best if the babies stay with Minnie and Cat and me for a while. Tell your mother."Meggie sat down on a vacant chair and folded her hands in her lap. Oh, he was hers and he was dead! LittleHal, whom she had cared for and loved and mothered. The space in her mind he had occupied was not yet empty;she could still feel the warm weight of him against her chest. It was terrible to know the weight would never restthere again, where she had felt it for four long years. No, not a thing to cry over; tears were for Agnes, forwounds in the fragile sheath of self-esteem667, and the childhood she had left behind forever. This was a burden shewould have to carry until the end of her days, and continue in spite of it.
The will to survive is very strong in some, not so strong in others. In Meggie it was as refined and tensile as asteel hawser668. Just so did Father Ralph find her when he came in with the doctor. She pointed669 silently to thehallway but made no effort to follow them. And it was a long time before the priest could finally do what he hadwanted to do since Mary Carson phoned the presbytery; go to Meggie, be with her, give the poor little femaleoutsider something from himself for her very own. He doubted that anyone else fully111 appreciated what Halmeant to her. But it was a long time. There were the last rites585 to be administered, in case the soul had not yet leftthe body; and Fee to see, Paddy to see, practical advice to give. The doctor had gone, dejected but long used tothe tragedies his far-flung practice made inevitable. From what they said, little he could have done anyway, sofar from his hospital and his trained nursing staff. These people took their chances, they faced their demons589 andhung on. His death certificate would say "Croup." It was a handy malady670. Eventually there was nothing left forFather Ralph to see to. Paddy had gone to Fee, Bob and the boys to the carpentry shed to make the little coffin671.
Stuart was on the floor in Fee's bedroom, his pure profile so like her own silhouetted672 against the night skyoutside the window; from where she lay on her pillow with Paddy's hand in hers, Fee never left hercontemplation of the dark shape huddled on the cold floor. It was five o'clock in the morning and the roosterswere stirring drowsily, but it would be dark for a long time yet.
Purple stole around his neck because he . had forgotten he was wearing it, Father Ralph bent to the kitchen fireand built it up from embers into a blaze, turned down the lamp on the table behind, and sat on a wooden benchopposite Meggie to watch her. She had grown, put on seven-league boots which threatened to leave him behind,outstripped; he felt his inadequacy673 then more keenly, watching her, than ever he had in a life filled with agnawing, obsessive674 doubt of his courage. Only what was he afraid of? What did he think he couldn't face if itcame? He could be strong for other people, he didn't fear other people; but within himself, expecting thatnameless something to come sliding into consciousness when he least expected it, he knew fear. While Meggie,born eighteen years after him, was growing beyond him. Not that she was a saint, or indeed anything more thanmost. Only that she never complained, that she had the gift-or was it the curse?-of acceptance. No matter whathad gone or what might come, she confronted it and accepted it, stored it away to fuel the furnace of her being.
What had taught her that? Could it be taught? Or was his idea of her a figment of his own fantasies? Did it reallymatter? Which was more important: what she truly was, or what he thought she was?
"Oh, Meggie," he said helplessly.
She turned her gaze to him and out of her pain gave him a smile of absolute, overflowing love, nothing in itheld back, the taboos675 and inhibitions of womanhood not yet a part of her world. To be so loved shook him,consumed him, made him wish to the God Whose existence he sometimes doubted that he was anyone in theuniverse but Ralph de Bricassart. Was this it, the unknown thing? Oh, God, why did he love her so? But as usualno one answered him; and Meggie sat still smiling at him. At dawn Fee got up to make breakfast, Stuart helpingher, then Mrs. Smith came back with Minnie and Cat, and the four women stood together by the stove talking inhushed monotones, bound in some league of grief neither Meggie nor the priest understood. After the mealMeggie went to line the little wooden box the boys had made, planed smooth and varnished676. Silently Fee hadgiven her a white satin evening gown long since gone to the hue677 of ivory with age, and she fitted strips of it tothe hard contours of the box interior. While Father Ralph put a toweling padding in it she ran the pieces of satininto shape on the sewing machine, then together they fixed the lining678 in place with thumbtacks. And after thatFee dressed her baby in his best velvet679 suit, combed his hair and laid him in the soft nest which smelled of her,but not of Meggie, who had been his mother. Paddy closed down the lid, weeping; this was the first child he hadlost. For years the reception room at Drogheda had been in use as a chapel680; an altar had been built at one end,and was draped in golden raiment Mary Carson had paid the nuns of St. Mary d'Urso a thousand pounds toembroider. Mrs. Smith had decked the room and the altar with winter flowers from Drogheda's gardens,wallflowers and early stocks and late roses, masses of them like pink and rusty paintings magically finding thedimension of scent241. In a laceless white alb and a black chasuble free of any ornamentation, Father Ralph said theRequiem Mass.
As with most of the great Outback stations, Drogheda buried its dead on its own land. The cemetery682 lay beyondthe gardens by the willow-littered banks of the creek, bounded by a white-painted wrought683-iron railing and greeneven in this dry time, for it was watered from the homestead tanks. Michael Carson*and his baby son wereentombed there in an imposing marble vault684, a life-size angel on top of its pediment with sword drawn to guardtheir rest. But perhaps a dozen less pretentious685 plots ringed the mausoleum, marked only by plain white woodencrosses and white croquet hoops686 to define their neat boundaries, some of them bare even of a name: a shearerwith no known relatives who had died in a barracks brawl687; two or three swaggies whose last earthly calling placehad been Drogheda; some sexless and totally anonymous688 bones found in one of the paddocks;Michael Carson's Chinese cook, over whose remains689 stood a quaint103 scarlet umbrella, whose sad small bellsseemed perpetually to chime out the name Hee Sing, Hee Sing, Hee Sing; a drover whose cross said onlyTANKSTAND CHARLIE HE WAS A GOOD BLOKE; and more besides, some of them women. But suchsimplicity was not for Hal, the owner's nephew; they stowed his homemade box on a shelf inside the vault andclosed elaborate bronze doors upon it.
After a while everyone ceased to speak of Hal except in passing. Meggie's sorrow she kept exclusively toherself; her pain had the unreasoning desolation peculiar to children, magnified and mysterious, yet her veryyouth buried it beneath everyday events, and diminished its importance. The boys were little affected save Bob,who had been old enough to be fond of his tiny brother. Paddy grieved deeply, but no one knew whether Feegrieved. It seemed she grew further and further away from husband and children, from all feeling. Because ofthis, Paddy was so grateful to Stu for the way he minded his mother, the grave tenderness with which he treatedher. Only Paddy knew how Fee had looked the day he came back from Gilly without Frank. There had not been aflicker of emotion in those soft grey eyes, not hardening nor accusation690, hate or sorrow. As if she had simplybeen waiting for the blow to fall like a condemned691 dog for the killing bullet, knowing her fate and powerless toavoid it.
"I knew he wouldn't come back," she said.
"Maybe he will, Fee, if you write to him quickly," Paddy said. She shook her head, but being Fee went into noexplanations. Better that Frank made a new life for himself far from Drogheda and her. She knew her son wellenough to be convinced that one word from her would bring him back, so she must not utter that word, ever. Ifthe days were long and bitter with a sense of failure, she must bear it in silence. Paddy hadn't been the man of herchoice, but a better man than Paddy never lived. She was one of those people whose feelings are so intense theybecome unbearable692, unlivable, and her lesson had been a harsh one. For almost twenty-five years she had beencrushing emotion out of existence, and she was convinced that in the end persistence693 would succeed.
Life went on in the rhythmic238, endless cycle of the land; the following summer the rains came, not monsoonalbut a by-product694 of them, filling the creek and the tanks, succoring695 the thirsting grass roots, sponging away thestealthy dust. Almost weeping in joy, the men went about the business of the patterned seasons, secure in theknowledge they would not have to handfeed the sheep. The grass had lasted just long enough, eked187 out by scrub-cutting from the more juicy trees; but it was not so on all the Gilly stations. How many stock a station carrieddepended entirely on the grazier running it. For its great size Drogheda was understocked, which meant the grasslasted just that much longer.
Lambing and the hectic696 weeks that followed it were busiest of all in the sheep calendar. Every lamb born had tobe caught; its tail was ringed, its ear marked, and if it was a male not required for breeding it was also castrated.
Filthy697, abominable698 work which soaked them to the skin with blood, for there was only one way to wade699 throughthousands upon thousands of male lambs in the short time available. The testicles were popped out between thefingers and bitten off, spat700 on the ground. Circled by tin bands incapable701 of expanding, the tails of male andfemale lambs alike gradually lost their vital bloody supply, swelled702, withered703 and dropped off. These were thefinest wool sheep in the world, raised on a scale unheard of in any other country, and with a paucity704 ofmanpower. Everything was geared to the perfect production of perfect wool. There was crutching705; around thesheep's rear end the wool grew foul706 with excrement707, fly-blown, black and lumped together in what were calleddags. This area had to be kept shaven close, or crutched708. It was a minor709 shearing job but one far less pleasing,stinking and fly-ridden, and it paid better rates. Then there was dipping: thousands upon thousands of bleating,leaping creatures were hounded and yanked through a maze of runs, in and out of the phenyl dips which rid themof ticks, pests and vermin. And drenching: the administration of medicine through huge syringes rammed710 downthe throat, to rid the sheep of intestinal711 parasites712.
For work with the sheep never, never ended; as one job finished it became time for another. They weremustered and graded, moved from one paddock to another, bred and unbred, shorn and crutched, dipped anddrenched, slaughtered and shipped off to be sold. Drogheda carried about a thousand head of prime beef cattle aswell as its sheep, but sheep were far more profitable, so in good times Drogheda carried about one sheep forevery two acres of its land, or about 125,000 altogether. Being merinos, they were never sold for meat; at the endof a merino's wool-producing years it was shipped off to become skins, lanolin, tallow and glue, useful only tothe tanneries and the knackeries.
Thus it was that gradually the classics of Bush literature took on meaning. Reading had become more importantthan ever to the Clearys, isolated713 from the world on Drogheda; their only contact with it was through the magicwritten word. But there was no lending library close, as there had been in Wahine, no weekly trip into town formail and newspapers and a fresh stack of library books, as there had been in Wahine. Father Ralph filled thebreach by plundering714 the Gillanbone library, his own and the convent's shelves, and found to his astonishmentthat before he was done he had organized a whole Bush circulating library via Bluey Williams and the mailtruck. It was perpetually loaded with books-worn, thumbed volumes which traveled down the tracks betweenDrogheda and Bugela, Dibban-Dibban and Braichy Pwll, Cunnamutta and Each-Uisge, seized upon gratefully byminds starved for sustenance and escape. Treasured stories were always returned with great reluctance715, butFather Ralph and the nuns kept a careful record of what books stayed longest where, then Father Ralph wouldorder copies through the Gilly news agency and blandly716 charge them to Mary Carson as donations to the HolyCross Bush Bibliophilic717 Society. Those were the days when a book was lucky to contain a chaste718 kiss, when thesenses were never titillated719 by erotic passages, so that the demarcation line between books meant for adults andthose meant for older children was less strictly drawn, and there was no disgrace for a man of Paddy's age to lovebest the books his children also adored: Dot and the Kangaroo, the Billabong series about Jim and Norah andWally, Mrs. Aeneas Gunn's immortal720 We of the Never-Never. In the kitchen at night they would take turns toread the poems of Banjo Paterson and C. J. Dennis out loud, thrilling to the ride of "The Man from SnowyRiver," or laughing with "The Sentimental721 Bloke" and his Doreen, or wiping away surreptitious tears shed forJohn O'Hara's "Laughing Mary."I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlanyears ago; He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him, Just on spec, addressed as follows,"Clancy, of the Overflow."And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected (and I think the same was written with a thumb-naildipped in tar); 'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it: "Clancy's gone to Queenslanddroving, and we don't know where he are."In my wild erratic722 fancy visions come to me of Clancy Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Westerndrovers go; As the stock are slowly stringing Clancy rides behind them singing, For the drover's life haspleasures that the townsfolk never know. And the bush has friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet himIn the murmur624 of the breezes and the river on its bars, And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plainsextended, And at night the wondrous723 glory of the everlasting724 stars.
"Clancy of the Overflow" was everyone's favorite, "the Banjo" their favorite poet. Hoppity-go-kick doggerel725,perhaps, but the poems had never been intended for the eyes of sophisticated savants; they were for the people,of the people, and more Australians of that day could recite them off by heart than knew the standard schoolroompieces by Tennyson and Wordsworth, for their brand of hoppity-go-kick doggerel was written with England asinspiration. Crowds of daffodils and fields of asphodel meant nothing to the Clearys, living in a climate whereneither could exist. The Clearys understood the bush poets better than most, for the Overflow was their backyard,the traveling sheep a reality on the TSR'S. There was an official Traveling Stock Route or TSR winding its waynear the Barwon River, free crown land for the transference of living merchandise from one end of the easternhalf of the continent to the other. In the old days drovers and their hungry, grass-ruining mobs of stock had notbeen welcome, and the bullockies a hated breed as they inched their mammoth teams of from twenty to eightyoxen through the middle of the squatters" best grazing. Now, with official stock routes for the drovers and thebullockies vanished into legend, things were more amicable726 between vagabonds and stay-puts.
The occasional drovers were welcomed as they rode in for a beer and a talk, a home-cooked meal. Some timesthey brought women with them, driving battered old sulkies with galled727 ex-stock horses between the shafts728, potsand billies and bottles banging and clanking in a fringe all around. These were the most cheerful or the mostmorose women in the Outback, drifting from Kynuna to the Paroo, from Goondiwindi to Gundagai;, from theKatherine to the Curry730. Strange women; they never knew a roof over their heads or the feel of a kapok731 mattressbeneath their iron-hard spines732. No man had bested them; they were as tough and en during as the country whichflowed under their restless feet. Wild as the birds in the sun-drenched trees, their children skulked733 shyly behindthe sulky wheels or scuttled734 for the protection of the woodheap while their parents yarned735 over cups of tea,swapped tall stories and books, promised to pass on vague messages to Hoopiron Collins or Brumby Waters, andtold the fantastic tale of the Pommy jackaroo on Gnarlunga. And somehow you could be sure these rootlesswanderers had dug a grave, buried a child or a wife, a husband or a mate, under some never-to-be-forgottencoolibah on a stretch of the TSR which only looked the same to those who didn't know how hearts could markout as singular and special one tree in a wilderness736 of trees.
Meggie was ignorant even of the meaning of a phrase as hackneyed as "the facts of life," for circumstances hadconspired to block every avenue whereby she might have learned. Her father drew a rigid581 line between the malesof the family and the females; subjects like breeding or mating were never discussed in front of the women, nordid the men ever appear in front of the women unless fully clothed. The kind of books that might have given hera clue never appeared on Drogheda, and she had no friends of her own age to con-tribute to her education. Herlife was absolutely harnessed to the needs of the house, and around the house there were no sexual activities atall. The Home Paddock creatures were almost literally737 sterile454. Mary Carson didn't breed horses, she bought themfrom Martin King of Bugela, who did; unless one bred horses stallions were a nuisance, so Drogheda didn't haveany stallions. It did have a bull, a wild and savage beast whose pen was strictly out of bounds, and Meggie wasso frightened of it she never went anywhere near it. The dogs were kept kenneled738 and chained, their mating ascientific, supervised exercise conducted under Paddy's or Bob's eagle eye, therefore also out of bounds. Nor wasthere time to watch the pigs, which Meggie hated and resented having to feed. In truth, there wasn't time forMeggie to watch anyone beyond her two tiny brothers. And ignorance breeds ignorance; an unawakened bodyand mind sleep through events which awareness catalogues automatically.
Just before Meggie's fifteenth birthday, as the summer heat was building up toward its stupefying peak, shenoticed brown, streaky stains on her drawers. After a day or two they went away, but six weeks later they cameback, and her shame turned to terror. The first time she had thought them signs of a dirty bottom, thus hermortification, but in their second appearance they became unmistakably blood. She had no idea where the bloodwas coming from, but assumed it was her bottom. The slow hemorrhage was gone three days later, and did notrecur for over two months; her furtive washing of the drawers had gone unnoticed, for she did most of thelaundry anyway. The next attack brought pain, the first non-bilious739 rigors741 of her life. And the bleeding wasworse, far worse. She stole some of the twins' discarded diapers and tried to bind533 herself under her drawers,terrified the blood would come through. Death taking Hal had been like a tempestuous742 visit from somethingghostly; but this strung-out cessation of her own being was terrifying. How could she possibly go to Fee orPaddy to break the news that she was dying from some disreputable, forbidden disease of the bottom? Only toFrank might she have poured out her torment538, but Frank was so far away she didn't know where to find him. Shehad listened to the women talk over their cups of tea of tumors and cancers, gruesome lingering deaths theirfriends or mothers or sisters had endured, and it seemed to Meggie sure to be some kind of growth eating herinsides away, chewing silently up toward her frightened heart. Oh, she didn't want to die!
Her ideas about the condition of death were vague; she wasn't even clear on what her status would be in thatincomprehensible other world. Religion to Meggie was a set of laws rather than a spiritual experience, it couldn'thelp her at all. Words and phrases jostled piecemeal743 in her panicked consciousness, uttered by her parents, theirfriends, the nuns, priests in sermons, bad men in books threatening vengeance744. There was no way she couldcome to terms with death; she lay night after night in a confused terror, trying to imagine if death was perpetualnight, or an abyss of flames she had to jump over to reach the golden fields on the far side, or a sphere like theinside of a gigantic balloon full of soaring choirs745 and light attenuated746 through limitless stained-glass windows.
She grew very quiet, but in a manner quite different from Stuart's peaceful, dreamy isolation; hers was thepetrified freezing of an animal caught in the serpent's basilisk stare. If she was spoken to suddenly she jumped, ifthe little ones cried for her she fussed over them in an agony of expiation747 for her neglect. And whenever she hada rare moment to herself she ran away, down to the cemetery and Hal, who was the only dead person she knew.
Everyone noticed the change in her, but accepted it as Meggie growing up without once asking themselves whatgrowing up for Meggie entailed748; she hid her distress749 too well. The old lessons had been well learned; her self-control was phenomenal and her pride formidable. No one must ever know what went on inside her, the facademust continue flawless to the end; from Fee to Frank to Stuart the examples were there, and she was of the sameblood, it was a part of her nature and her heritage. But as Father Ralph paid his frequent visits to Drogheda andthe change in Meggie deepened from a pretty feminine metamorphosis to a quenching750 of all her vitality751, hisconcern for her mushroomed into worry, and then into fear. A physical and spiritual wasting away was takingplace beneath his very eyes; she was slipping away from them, and he couldn't bear to see her become anotherFee. The small pointed face was all eyes staring at some dreadful prospect752, the milky753 opaque754 skin which nevertanned or freckled was growing more translucent755. If the process went on, he thought, she would one daydisappear into her own eyes like a snake swallowing its tail, until she drifted through the universe as an almostinvisible shaft729 of glassy grey light, seen only from the corner of the vision where shadows lurk342 and black thingscrawl down a white wall.
Well, he would find out if he had to wring658 it from her forcibly. Mary Carson was at her most demanding thesedays, jealous of every moment he spent down at the head stockman's house; only the infinite patience of a subtle,devious man kept his rebellion against her possessiveness hidden from her. Even his alien preoccupation withMeggie couldn't always overcome his politic555 wisdom, the purring content he derived276 from watching his charmwork on such a cantankerous756, refractory757 subject as Mary Carson. While that long-dormant care for the welfare ofa single other person champed and stamped up and down his mind, he acknowledged the existence of anotherentity dwelling758 side by side with it: the cat-cold cruelty of getting the better of, making a fool of a conceited,masterful woman. Oh, he'd always liked to do that! The old spider would never get the better of him.
Eventually he managed to shake free of Mary Carson and run Meggie to earth in the little graveyard613 under theshadow of the pallid35, unwarlike avenging760 angel. She was staring up into its mawkishly761 placid762 face with shrinkingfear written on her own, an exquisite contrast between the feeling and the unfeeling, he thought. But what was hedoing here, chasing after her like a clucky old hen when it was really none of his business, when it ought to beher mother or her father to find out what was the matter? Only that they hadn't seen anything wrong, that shedidn't matter to them the way she mattered to him. And that he was a priest, he must give comfort to the lonely orthe despairing in spirit. He couldn't bear to see her unhappy, yet he shrank from the way he was tying himself toher by an accumulation of events. He was making a whole arsenal763 of happenings and memories out of her, andhe was afraid. His love for her and his priestly instinct to offer himself in any required spiritual capacity warredwith an obsessive horror of becoming utterly necessary to someone human, and of having someone humanbecome utterly necessary to himself. As she heard him walk across the grass she turned to confront him, foldingher hands in her lap and looking down at her feet. He sat near her, arms locked around his knees, the soutane infolds no more graceful than the easy length of the body inhabiting it. No sense beating around the bush, hedecided; if she could, she would evade764 him.
"What's the matter, Meggie?""Nothing, Father.""I don't believe you.""Please, Father, please! I can't tell you!""Oh, Meggie! Ye of little faith! You can tell me anything, anything under the sun. That's what I'm here for,that's why I'm a priest. I am Our Lord's chosen representative here on earth, I listen on His behalf, I even forgiveon His behalf. And, wee Meggie, there is nothing in God's universe He and I cannot find it in our hearts toforgive. You must tell me what the matter is, my love, because if anyone can help you, 1 c. As long as I live I'lltry to help you, watch over you. If you like, a sort of guardian765 angel, better by far than that chunk766 of marbleabove your head." He took a breath and leaned forward. "Meggie, if you love me, tell me!"Her hands gripped one another. "Father, I'm dying! I've got cancer!" First came a wild desire to laugh, a greatsurge of uproarious anticlimax767; then he looked at the thin blue skin, the wasting of her little arms, and there camean awful longing to weep and cry, scream of its unfairness to the roof of heaven. No, Meggie wouldn't imaginethis out of nothing; there had to be a valid768 reason.
"How do you know, dear heart?"It took her a long time to say it, and when she did he had to bend his head right down to her lips in anunconscious parody769 of the confessional pose, handshielding his face from her eyes, finely modeled ear presented for the sullying.
"It's six months, Father, since it started. I get the most awful pains in my tummy, but not like a bilious attack,and-oh, Father!-a lot of blood runs out of my bottom!"His head reared back, something which had never happened inside the confessional; he stared down at hershamed bent head with so many emotions assaulting him that he could not marshal his wits. An absurd, deliciousrelief; an anger at Fee so great he wanted to kill her; awed admiration for such a little thing as her, to bear somuch so well; and a ghastly, all-pervasive embarrassment770.
He was as much a prisoner of the times as she was. The cheap girls in every town he had known from Dublin toGillanbone would deliberately come into the confessional to whisper their fantasies to him as actual happenings,concerned with the only facet771 of him which interested them, his manhood, and not willing to admit it lay beyondtheir power to arouse it. They muttered of men violating every orifice, of illicit772 games with other girls, of lust andadultery, one or two of superior imagination even going so far as to detail sexual relations with a priest. And hewould listen totally unmoved save for a sick contempt, for he had been through the rigors of the seminary andthat particular lesson was an easy one for a man of his type. But the girls, never, never mentioned that secretactivity which set them apart, demeaned them.
Try as he would, he could not prevent the scorching tide from diffusing773 up under his skin; Father Ralph deBricassart sat with his face turned away behind his hand and writhed774 through the humiliation775 of his first blush.
But this wasn't helping his Meggie. When he was sure the color had subsided776 he got to his feet, picked her upand sat her on a flat-topped marble pedestal, where her face and his were level.
"Meggie, look at me. No, look at me!"She raised hunted eyes and saw that he was smiling; an immeasurable contentment filled her soul at once. Hewould not smile so if she were dying; she knew very well how much she meant to him, for he had neverconcealed it.
"Meggie, you're not dying and you haven't got cancer. It isn't my place to tell you what's the matter, but I think Ihad better. Your mother should have told you years ago, prepared you, and why she didn't is beyond me." Helooked up at the inscrutable marble angel above him and gave a peculiar, half-strangled laugh. "Dear Jesus! Thethings Thou givest me to do!" Then, to the waiting Meggie: "In years to come, as you grow older and learn moreabout the ways of the world, you might be tempted777 to remember today with embarrassment, even shame. Butdon't remember today like that, Meggie. There's absolutely nothing shameful778 or embarrassing about it. In this, asin everything I do, I am simply the instrument of Our Lord. It is my only function on this earth; I must admit noother. You were very frightened, you needed help, and Our Lord has sent you that help in my person. Rememberthat alone, Meggie. I am Our Lord's priest, and I speak in His Name. "You're only doing what all women do,Meggie. Once a month for several days you'll pass blood. It starts usually around twelve or thirteen years of age-how old are you, as much as that?""I'm fifteen, Father.""Fifteen? You?" He shook his head, only half believing her. "Well, if you say you are, I'll have to take yourword for it. In which case you're later than most girls. But it continues every month until you're about fifty, andin some women it's as regular as the phases of the moon, in others it's not so predictable. Some women have nopain with it, others suffer a lot of pain. No one knows why it's so different from one woman to another. But topass blood every month is a sign that you're mature. Do you know what "mature' means?" "Of course, Father! Iread! It means grown up.""All right, that will do. While ever the bleeding persists, you're capable of having children. The bleeding is apart of the cycle of procreation. In the days before the Fall, it is said Eve didn't menstruate. The proper name forit is menstruation, to menstruate. But when Adam and Eve fell, God punished the woman more than He did theman, because it was really her fault they fell. She tempted the man. Do you remember the words in your Biblehistory? "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." What God meant was that for a woman everything having todo with children involves pain. Great joy, but also great pain. It is your lot, Meggie, and you must accept it." Shedidn't know it, but just so would he have offered comfort and help to any of his parishioners, if with a lessintense personal involvement; so very kindly, but never identifying himself with the trouble. And, perhaps not sooddly, thereby779 the comfort and help he offered was all the greater. As if he had gone beyond such small things,so they were bound to pass. It was not a conscious thing in him, either; no one who came to him for succor everfelt that he looked down on them, or blamed them for their weaknesses. Many priests left their people feelingguilty, worthless or bestial780, but he never did. For he made them think that he, too, had his sorrows and hisstruggles; alien sorrows and incomprehensible struggles, perhaps, yet no less real. He neither knew nor couldhave been brought to understand that the larger part of his appeal and attraction lay not in his person, but in thisaloof, almost godlike, very human something from his soul.
As far as Meggie was concerned, he talked to her the way Frank had talked to her: as if she were his equal.
But he was older, wiser and far better educated than Frank, a more satisfactory confidant. And how beautiful hisvoice was, with its faint Irishness and pearshaped Britishness. It took all the fear and anguish781 away. Yet she wasyoung, full of curiosity, eager now to know all there was to know, and not troubled by the perplexingphilosophies of those who constantly question not the who of themselves but the why. He was her friend, thecherished idol782 of her heart, the new sun in her firmament783. "Why shouldn't you tell me, Father? Why did you sayit ought to be Mum?" "It's a subject women keep very much to themselves. To mention menstruation or one'speriod in front of men or boys just isn't done, Meggie. It's something strictly between women."He shook his head, and laughed. "To be honest, I really don't know why. I even wish it weren't so. But you musttake my word for it that it is so. Never mention it to a soul except your mother, and don't tell her you discussed itwith me.""All right, Father, I won't."It was damnably difficult, this being a mother; so many practical considerations to remember! "Meggie, youmust go home and tell your mother you've been passing blood, and ask her to show you how to fix yourself up.""Mum does it, too?""All healthy women do. But when they're expecting a baby they stop until after the baby is born. That's howwomen tell they're expecting babies." "Why do they stop when they're expecting babies?" "I don't know, I reallydon't. Sorry, Meggie.""Why does the blood come out of my bottom, Father?" He glared up at the angel, which looked back at himserenely, not troubled by women's troubles. Things were getting too sticky for Father Ralph. Amazing that shepersisted when she was usually so reticent784! Yet realizing he had become the source of her knowledge abouteverything she couldn't find in books, he knew her too well to give her any hint of his embarrassment ordiscomfort. She would withdraw into herself and never ask him anything again.
So he answered patiently, "It doesn't come out of your bottom, Meggie. There is a hidden passageway in frontof your bottom, which has to do with children.""Oh! Where they get out, you mean," she said. "I always wondered how they got out."He grinned, and lifted her down from her pedestal. "Now you know. Do you know what makes babies,Meggie?""Oh, yes," she said importantly, glad she knew at least something. "You grow them, Father.""What causes them to start growing?""You wish them.""Who told you that?""No one. I worked it out for myself," she said. Father Ralph closed his eyes and told himself that he couldn'tpossibly be called a coward for leaving matters where they stood. He could pity her, but he couldn't help her anyfurther. Enough was enough.
Mary Carson was going to be seventy-two years old, and she was planning the biggest party to be held onDrogheda in fifty years. Her birthday fell at the start of November, when it was hot but still bearable-at least forGilly natives.
"Mark that, Mrs. Smith!" Minnie whispered. "Do ye mark that! November the t'urrd herself was born!""What are you on about now, Min?" the housekeeper asked. Minnie's Celtic mysteriousness got on her owngood steady English nerves. "Why, and to be sure it means herself is a Scorpio woman, does it not? A Scorpiowoman, now!""I haven't got the slightest idea what you're talking about, Min!" "The wurrst sign a woman can find herselfborn into, Mrs. Smith darlin". Och, they're children of the Devil, so they are!" said Cat, round-eyed, blessingherself.
"Honestly, Minnie, you and Cat are the dizzy limit," said Mrs. Smith, not a whit36 impressed.
But excitement was running high, and would run higher. The old spider in her wing chair at the exact center ofher web issued a never-ending stream of orders; this was to be done, that was to be done, such and such was tobe taken out of storage, or put into Storage. The two Irish maids ran polishing silver and washing the bestHaviland china, turning the chapel back into a reception room and readying its adjacent dining rooms.
Hindered rather than helped by the little Cleary boys, Stuart and a team of rouseabouts mowed785 and scythed thelawn, weeded the flower beds, sprinkled damp sawdust on the verandas786 to clear dust from between the Spanishtiles, and dry chalk on the reception room floor to make it fit for dancing. Clarence O'Toole's band was comingall the way from Sydney, along with oysters787 and prawns788, crabs789 and lobsters791; several women from Gilly werebeing hired as temporary helpers. The whole district from Rudna Hunish to Inishmurray to Bugela to Narrengangwas in a ferment792. As the marble hallways echoed to unaccustomed sounds of objects being moved and peopleshouting, Mary Carson shifted herself from her wing chair to her desk, drew a sheet of parchment forward,dipped her pen in the standish, and began to write. There was no hesitation793, not so much as a pause to considerthe positioning of a comma. For the last five years she had worked out every intricate phrase in her mind, until itwas absolutely word perfect. It did not take her long to finish; there were two sheets of paper, the second onewith a good quarter of it blank. But for a moment, the last sentence complete, she sat on in her chair. The roll-topdesk stood alongside one of the big windows, so that by simply turning her head she could look out across thelawns. A laugh from outside made her do so, idly at first, then in stiffening794 rage. God damn him and hisobsession! Father Ralph had taught Meggie to ride; daughter of a country family, she had never sat astride ahorse until the priest remedied the deficiency. For oddly enough, the daughters of poor country families did notoften ride. Riding was a pastime for the rich young women of country and city alike. Oh, girls of Meggie'sbackground could drive buggies and teams of heavy horses, even tractors and sometimes cars, but rarely did theyride. It cost too much to mount a daughter.
Father Ralph had brought elastic-sided ankle boots and twill jodhpurs from Gilly and plumped them down onthe Cleary kitchen table noisily. Paddy had looked up from his after-dinner book, mildly surprised. "Well, whathave you got there, Father?" he asked. "Riding clothes for Meggie.""What?" bellowed Paddy's voice.
"What?" squeaked Meggie's.
"Riding clothes for Meggie. Honestly, Paddy, you're a first-class idiot! Heir to the biggest, richest station inNew South Wales, and you've never let your only daughter sit a horse! How do you think she's going to take herplace alongside Miss Carmichael, Miss Hopeton and Mrs. Anthony King, equestriennes all? Meggie's got tolearn to ride, sidesaddle as well as astride, do you hear? I realize you're busy, so I'm going to teach Meggiemyself, and you can like it or lump it. If it happens to interfere795 with her duties in the house, too bad. For a fewhours each week Fee is just going to have to manage minus Meggie, and that's that."One thing Paddy couldn't do was argue with a priest; Meggie learned to ride forthwith. For years she hadlonged for the chance, had once timidly ventured to ask her father might she, but he had forgotten the nextmoment and she never asked again, thinking that was Daddy's way of saying no. To learn under the aegis796 ofFather Ralph cast her into a joy which she didn't show, for by this time her adoration797 of Father Ralph had turnedinto an ardent96, very girlish crush. Knowing it was quite impossible, she permitted herself the luxury of dreamingabout him, of wondering what it would be like to be held in his arms, receive his kiss. Further than that herdreams couldn't go, as she had no idea what came next, or even that anything came next. And if she knew it waswrong to dream so of a priest, there didn't seem to be any way she could discipline herself into not doing it. Thebest she could manage was to make absolutely sure he had no idea of the unruly turn her thoughts had taken.
As Mary Carson watched through the drawing room window, Father Ralph and Meggie walked down from thestables, which were on the far side of the big house from the head stockman's residence. The station men roderawboned stock horses which had never seen the inside of a stable in all their lives, just shuffled798 around the yardswhen penned for duty, or frisked through the grass of the Home Paddock when being spelled. But there werestables on Drogheda, though only Father Ralph used them now. Mary Carson kept two thoroughbred hacks therefor Father Ralph's exclusive use; no rawboned stock horses for him. When he had asked her if Meggie might usehis mounts also, she could not very well object. The girl was her niece, and he was right. She ought to be able toride decently.
With every bitter bone in her swollen old body Mary Carson had wished she had been able to refuse, or elseride with them. But she could neither refuse nor hoist799 herself on a horse anymore. And it galled her to see themnow, strolling across the lawn together, the man in his breeches and knee boots and white shirt as graceful as adancer, the girl in her jodhpurs slim and boyishly beautiful. They radiated an easy friendship; for the millionthtime Mary Carson wondered why no one save she deplored their close, almost intimate relationship. Paddythought it wonderful, Fee-log that she was!-said nothing, as usual, while the boys treated them as brother andsister. Was it because she loved Ralph de Bricassart herself that she saw what no one else saw? Or did sheimagine it, was there really nothing save the friendship of a man in his middle thirties for a girl not yet all theway into womanhood? Piffle! No man in his middle thirties, even Ralph de Bricassart, could fail to see theunfolding rose. Even Ralph de Bricassart? Hah! Especially Ralph de Bricassart! Nothing ever missed that man.
Her hands were trembling; the pen sprinkled darkblue drops across the bottom of the paper. The gnarled fingerplucked another sheet from a pigeonhole800, dipped the pen in the standish again, and rewrote the words as surely asthe first time. Then she heaved herself to her feet and moved her bulk to the door.
"Minnie! Minnie!" she called.
"Lord help us, it's herself!" the maid said clearly from the reception room opposite. Her ageless freckled facecame round the door. "And what might I be gettin' for ye, Mrs. Carson darlin'?" she asked, wondering why theold woman had not rung the bell for Mrs. Smith, as was her wont801. "Go and find the fencer and Tom. Send themhere to me at once." "Ought I not be reportin' to Mrs. Smith furrst?" "No! Just do as you're told, girl!"Tom, the garden rouseabout, was an old, wizened fellow who had been on the track with his bluey and his billy,and taken work for a while seventeen years ago; he had fallen in love with the Drogheda gardens and couldn'tbear to leave them. The fencer, a drifter like all his breed, had been pulled from the endless task of stringing tautwire between posts in the paddocks to repair the homestead's white pickets802 for the party. Awed at the summons,they came within a few minutes and stood in work trousers, braces803 and flannel undershirts, hats screwednervously in their hands. "Can both of you write?" asked Mrs. Carson.
They nodded, swallowed.
"Good. I want you to watch me sign this piece of paper, then fix your own names and addresses just below mysignature. Do you understand?" They nodded.
"Make sure you sign the way you always do, and print your permanent addresses clearly. I don't care if it's apost office general delivery or what, so long as you can be reached through it." The two men watched herinscribe her name; it was the only time her writing was not compressed. Tom came forward, sputtered804 the penacross the paper painfully, then the fencer wrote "Chas. Hawkins" in large round letters, and a Sydney address.
Mary Carson watched them closely; when they were done she gave each of them a dull red ten-pound note, anddismissed them with a harsh injunction to keep their mouths shut.
Meggie and the priest had long since disappeared. Mary Carson sat down at her desk heavily, drew anothersheet of paper toward her, and began once more to write. This communication was not achieved with the easeand fluency805 of the last. Time and time again she stopped to think, then with lips drawn back in a humorless grin,she would continue. It seemed she had a lot to say, for her words were cramped806, her lines very close together,and still she required a second sheet. At the end she read what she had put down, placed all the sheets together,folded them and slid them into an envelope, the back of which she sealed with red wax.
Only Paddy, Fee, Bob, Jack and Meggie were going to the party; Hughie and Stuart were deputed to mind thelittle ones, much to their secret relief. For once in her life Mary Carson had opened her wallet wide enough forthe moths340 to fly out, for everyone had new clothes, the best Gilly could provide. Paddy, Bob and Jack wereimmobilized behind starched shirt fronts, high collars and white bow ties, black tails, black trousers, whitewaistcoats. It was going to be a very formal affair, white tie and tails for the men, sweeping gowns for thewomen.
Fee's dress was of crepe in a peculiarly rich shade of blue-grey, and suited her, falling to the floor in soft folds,low of neckline but tightly sleeved to the wrists, lavishly beaded, much in the style of Queen Mary. Like thatimperious lady, she had her hair done high in backsweeping puffs807, and the Gilly store had produced an imitationpearl choker and earrings808 which would fool all but a close inspection809. A magnificent ostrich810-feather fan dyed thesame color as her gown completed the ensemble811, not so ostentatious as it appeared at first glance; the weatherwas unusually hot, and at seven in the evening it was still well over a hundred degrees.
When Fee and Paddy emerged from their room, the boys gaped. In all their lives they had never seen theirparents so regally handsome, so foreign. Paddy looked his sixty-one years, but in such a distinguished812 way hemight have been a statesman; whereas Fee seemed suddenly ten years younger than her forty-eight, beautiful,vital, magically smiling. Jims and Patsy burst into shrieking813 tears, refusing to look at Mum and Daddy until theyreverted to normal, and in the flurry of consternation814 dignity was forgotten; Mum and Daddy behaved as theyalways did, and soon the twins were beaming in admiration.
But it was at Meggie everyone stared the longest. Perhaps remembering her own girlhood, and angered that allthe other young ladies invited had ordered their gowns from Sydney, the Gilly dressmaker had put her heart intoMeggie's dress. It was sleeveless and had a low, draped neckline; Fee had been dubious815, but Meggie hadimplored and the dressmaker assured her all the girls would be wearing the same sort of thing-did she want herdaughter laughed at for being countrified and dowdy816? So Fee had given in gracefully817. Of crepe georgette, aheavy chiffon, the dress was only slightly fitted at the waist, but sashed around the hips with the same material. Itwas a dusky, pale pinkish grey, the color that in those days was called ashes of roses; between them thedressmaker and Meggie had embroidered the entire gown in tiny pink rosebuds819. And Meggie had cut her hair inthe closest way she could to the shingle820 creeping even through the ranks of Gilly girls. It curled far too much forfashion, of course, but it suited her better short than long.
Paddy opened his mouth to roar because she was not his little girl Meggie, but shut it again with the wordsunuttered; he had learned from that scene in the presbytery with Frank long ago. No, he couldn't keep her a littlegirl forever; she was a young woman and shy of the amazing transformation821 her mirror had shown her. Whymake it harder for the poor little beggar? He extended his hand to her, smiling tenderly. "Oh, Meggie, you're solovely! Come on, I'm going to escort you myself, and Bob and Jack shall take your mother."She was just a month short of seventeen, and for the first time in his life Paddy felt really old. But she was thetreasure of his heart; nothing should spoil her first grown-up party.
They walked to the homestead slowly, far too early for the first guests; they were to dine with Mary Carson andbe on hand to receive with her. No one wanted dirty shoes, but a mile through Drogheda dust meant a pause inthe cookhouse to polish shoes, brush dust from trouser bottoms and trailing hems. Father Ralph was in hissoutane as usual; no male evening fashion could have suited him half so well as that severely822 cut robe with itsslightly flaring823 lines, the innumerable little black cloth buttons up its front from hem38 to collar, the purple-edgedmonsignor's sash. Mary Carson has chosen to wear white satin, white lace and white ostrich feathers. Fee staredat her stupidly, shocked out of her habitual824 indifference. It was so incongruously bridal, so grossly unsuitable-whyon earth had she tricked herself out like a raddled old spinster playacting at being married? She had got veryfat of late, which didn't improve matters. But Paddy seemed to see nothing amiss; he strode forward to take hissister's hands, beaming. What a dear fellow he was, thought Father Ralph as he watched the little scene, halfamused, half detached.
"Well, Mary! How fine you look! Like a young girl!" In truth she looked almost exactly like that famousphotograph of Queen Victoria taken not long before she died. The two heavy lines were there on either side ofthe masterful nose, the mulish mouth was set indomitably, the slightly protruding825 and glacial eyes fixed withoutblinking on Meggie. Father Ralph's own beautiful eyes passed from niece to aunt, and back to niece again.
Mary Carson smiled at Paddy, and put her hand on his arm. "You may take me in to dinner, Padraic. Father deBricassart will escort Fiona, and the boys must make do with Meghann between them." Over her shoulder shelooked back at Meggie. "Do you dance tonight, Meghann?""She's too young, Mary, she's not yet seventeen," said Paddy quickly, remembering another parentalshortcoming; none of his children had been taught to dance.
"What a pity," said Mary Carson.
It was a splendid, sumptuous826, brilliant, glorious party; at least, they were the adjectives most bandied about.
Royal O'Mara was there from Inishmurray, two hundred miles away; he came the farthest with his wife, sons andlone daughter, though not by much. Gilly people thought little of traveling two hundred miles to a cricket match,let alone a party. Duncan Gordon, from Each-Uisge; no one had ever persuaded him to explain why he had calledhis station so far from the ocean the Scots Gaelic for a sea horse. Martin King, his wife, his son Anthony andMrs. Anthony; he was Gilly's senior squatter373, since Mary Carson could not be so called, being a woman. EvanPugh, from Braich y Pwll, which the district pronounced Brakeypull.
Dominic O'Rourke from Dibban-Dibban, Horry Hopeton from Beel-Beel; and dozens more.
They were almost to the last family present Catholic, and few sported Anglo-Saxon names; there was about anequal distribution of Irish, Scottish and Welsh. No, they could not hope for home rule in the old country, nor, ifCatholic in Scotland or Wales, for much sympathy from the Protestant indigenes. But here in the thousands ofsquare miles around Gillanbone they were lords to thumb their noses at British lords, masters of all theysurveyed; Drogheda, the biggest property, was greater in area than several European principalities. Monegasqueprincelings, Liechtensteinian dukes, be-ware! Mary Carson was greater. So they whirled in waltzes to the sleekSydney band and stood back indulgently to watch their children dance the Charleston, ate the lobster790 patties andthe chilled raw oysters, drank the fifteen-year-old French champagne and the twelve-year-old single-malt Scotch827.
If the truth were known, they would rather have eaten roast leg of lamb or corned beef, and much preferred todrink cheap, very potent828 Bundaberg rum or Grafton bitter from the barrel. But it was nice to know the betterthings of life were theirs for the asking.
Yes, there were lean years, many of them. The wool checks were carefully hoarded829 in the good years to guardagainst the depredations830 of the bad, for no one could predict the rain. But it was a good period, had been forsome time, and there was little to spend the money on in Gilly. Oh, once born to the black soil plains of the GreatNorthwest there was no place on earth like it. They made no nostalgic pilgrimages back to the old country; it haddone nothing for them save discriminate831 against them for their religious convictions, where Australia was tooCatholic a country to discriminate. And the Great Northwest was home.
Besides, Mary Carson was footing the bill tonight. She could well afford it. Rumor said she was able to buy andsell the King of England. She had money in steel, money in silver-lead-zinc, money in copper and gold, moneyin a hundred different things, mostly the sort of things that literally and metaphorically832 made money. Droghedahad long since ceased to be the main source of her income; it was no more than a profitable hobby.
Father Ralph didn't speak directly to Meggie during dinner, nor did he afterward833; throughout the evening hestudiously ignored her. Hurt, her eyes sought him wherever he was in the reception room. Aware of it, he achedto stop by her chair and explain to her that it would not do her reputation (or his) any good if he paid her moreattention than he did, say, Miss Carmichael, Miss Gordon or Miss O'Mara. Like Meggie he didn't dance, and likeMeggie there were many eyes on him; they were easily the two most beautiful people in the room.
Half of him hated her appearance tonight, the short hair, the lovely dress, the dainty ashes-of-roses silk slipperswith their two-inch heels; she was growing taller, developing a very feminine figure. And half of him was busybeing terrifically proud of the fact that she shone all the other young ladies down. Miss Carmichael had thepatrician features, but lacked the special glory of that red-gold hair; Miss King had exquisite blond tresses, butlacked the lissome834 body; Miss Mackail was stunning of body, but in the face very like a horse eating an applethrough a wire-netting fence. Yet his overall reaction was one of disappointment, and an anguished835 wish to turnback the calendar. He didn't want Meggie to grow up, he wanted the little girl he could treat as his treasuredbabe. On Paddy's face he glimpsed an expression which mirrored his own thoughts, and smiled faintly. Whatbliss it would be if just once in his life he could show his feelings! But habit, training and discretion836 were tooingrained.
As the evening wore on the dancing grew more and more uninhibited, the liquor changed from champagne andwhiskey to rum and beer, and proceedings837 settled down to something more like a woolshed ball. By two in themorning only a total absence of station hands and working girls could distinguish it from the usualentertainments of the Gilly district, which were strictly democratic.
Paddy and Fee were still in attendance, but promptly838 at midnight Bob and Jack left with Meggie. Neither Feenor Paddy noticed; they were enjoying themselves. If their children couldn't dance, they could, and did; witheach other mostly, seeming to the watching Father Ralph suddenly much more attuned839 to each other, perhapsbecause the times they had an opportunity to relax and enjoy each other were rare. He never remembered seeingthem without at least one child somewhere around, and thought it must be hard on the parents of large families,never able to snatch moments alone save in the bedroom, where they might excusably have other things thanconversation on their minds. Paddy was always cheerful and jolly, but Fee tonight almost literally shone, andwhen Paddy went to beg a duty dance of some squatter's wife, she didn't lack eager partners; there were manymuch younger women wilting840 on chairs around the room who were not so sought after.
However, Father Ralph's moments to observe the Cleary parents were limited. Feeling ten years younger oncehe saw Meggie leave the room, he became a great deal more animated and flabbergasted the Misses Hopeton,Mackail, Gordon and O'Mara by dancing-and extremely well-the Black Bottom with Miss Carmichael. But afterthat he gave every unattached girl in the room her turn, even poor homely841 Miss Pugh, and since by this timeeveryone was thoroughly relaxed and oozing842 goodwill843, no one condemned the priest one bit. In fact, his zeal126 andkindness were much admired and commented upon. No one could say their daughter had not had an opportunityto dance with Father de Bricassart.
Of course, had it not been a private party he could not have made a move toward the dance floor, but it was sonice to see such a fine man really enjoy himself for once.
At three o'clock Mary Carson rose to her feet and yawned. "No, don't stop the festivities! If I'm tired which Iam-I can go to bed, which is what I'm going to do. But there's plenty of food and drink, the band has beenengaged to play as long as someone wants to dance, and a little noise will only speed me into my dreams. Father,would you help me up the stairs, please?" Once outside the reception room she did not turn to the majesticstaircase, but guided the priest to her drawing room, leaning heavily on his arm. Its door had been locked; shewaited while he used the key she handed him, then preceded him inside.
"It was a good party, Mary," he said.
"My last.""Don't say that, my dear.""Why not? I'm tired of living, Ralph, and I'm going to stop." Her hard eyes mocked. "Do you doubt me? Forover seventy years I've done precisely what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, so if Death thinks he's the oneto choose the time of my going, he's very much mistaken. I'll die when I choose the time, and no suicide, either.
It's our will to live keeps us kicking, Ralph; it isn't hard to stop if we really want to. I'm tired, and I want to stop.
Very simple."He was tired, too; not of living, exactly, but of the endless facade, the climate, the lack of friends with commoninterests, himself. The room was only faintly lit by a tall kerosene lamp of priceless ruby glass, and it casttransparent crimson844 shadows on Mary Carson's face, conjuring845 out of her intractable bones something morediabolical. His feet and back ached; it was a long time since he had danced so much, though he prided himself onkeeping up with whatever was the latest fad253. Thirty-five years of age, a country monsignor, and as a power in theChurch? Finished before he had begun. Oh, the dreams of youth! And the carelessness of youth's tongue, thehotness of youth's temper. He had not been strong enough to meet the test. But he would never make that mistakeagain. Never, never . . .
He moved restlessly, sighed; what was the use? The chance would not come again. Time he faced that factsquarely, time he stopped hoping and dreaming. "Do you remember my saying, Ralph, that I'd beat you, that I'dhoist you with your own petard?"The dry old voice snapped him out of the reverie his weariness had induced. He looked across at Mary Carsonand smiled.
"Dear Mary, I never forget anything you say. What I would have done without you these past seven years Idon't know. Your wit, your malice846, your perception . . .""If I'd been younger I'd have got you in a different way, Ralph. You'll never know how I've longed to throwthirty years of my life out the window. If the Devil had come to me and offered to buy my soul for the chance tobe young again, I'd have sold it in a second, and not stupidly regretted the bargain like that old idiot Faust. But noDevil. I really can't bring myself to believe in God or the Devil, you know. I've never seen a scrap323 of evidence tothe effect they exist. Have you?""No. But belief doesn't rest on proof of existence, Mary. It rests on faith, and faith is the touchstone of theChurch. Without faith, there is nothing.""A very ephemeral tenet.""Perhaps. Faith's born in a man or a woman, I think. For me it's a constant struggle, I admit that, but I'll nevergive up.""I would like to destroy you."His blue eyes laughed, greyed in the light. "Oh, my dear Mary! I know that.""But do you know why?"A terrifying tenderness crept against him, almost inside him, except that he fought it fiercely. "I know why,Mary, and believe me, I'm sorry.""Besides your mother, how many women have loved you?" "Did my mother love me, I wonder? She ended inhating me, anyway. Most women do. My name ought to have been Hippolytos.""Ohhhhhh! That tells me a lot!""As to other women, I think only Meggie . . . But she's a little girl. It's probably not an exaggeration to sayhundreds of women have wanted me, but loved me? I doubt it very much.""I have loved you," she said pathetically.
"No, you haven't. I'm the goad847 of your old age, that's all. When you look at me I remind you of what you cannotdo, because of age.""You're wrong. I have loved you. God, how much! Do you think my years automatically preclude848 it? Well,Father de Bricassart, let me tell you something. Inside this stupid body I'm still young-I still feel, I still want, Istill dream, I still kick up my heels and chafe545 at restrictions849 like my body. Old age is the bitterest vengeance ourvengeful God inflicts850 upon us. Why doesn't He age our minds as well?" She leaned back in her chair and closedher eyes, her teeth showing sourly. "I shall go to Hell, of course. But before I do, I hope I get the chance to tellGod what a mean, spiteful, pitiful apology of a God He is!""You were a widow too long. God gave you freedom of choice, Mary. You could have remarried. If you chosenot to remarry and in consequence you've been intolerably lonely, it's your own doing, not God's." . For amoment she said nothing, her hands gripping the chair arms hard; then she began to relax, and opened her eyes.
They glittered in the lamplight redly, but not with tears; with something harder, more brilliant. He caught hisbreath, felt fear. She looked like a spider.
"Ralph, on my desk is an envelope. Would you bring it to me, please?" Aching and afraid, he got up and wentto her desk, lifted the letter, eyed it curiously. The face of it was blank, but the back had been properly sealedwith red wax and her ram's head seal with the big D. He brought it to her and held it out, but she waved him tohis seat without taking it. "It's yours," she said, and giggled851. "The instrument of your fate, Ralph, that's what it is.
My last and most telling thrust in our long battle. What a pity I won't be here to see what happens. But I knowwhat will happen, because I know you, I know you much better than you think I do. Insufferable conceit759! Insidethat envelope lies the fate of your life and your soul. I must lose you to Meggie, but I've made sure she doesn'tget you, either." "Why do you hate Meggie so?""I told you once before. Because you love her.""Not in that way! She's the child I can never have, the rose of my life. Meggie is an idea, Mary, an idea!"But. the old woman sneered852. "I don't want to talk about your precious Meggie! I shall never see you again, so Idon't want to waste my time with you talking about her. The letter. I want you to swear on your vows as a priestthat you don't open it until you've seen my dead body for yourself, but then that you open it immediately, beforeyou bury me. Swear!" "There's no need to swear, Mary. I'll do as you ask.""Swear to me or I'll take it back!"He shrugged. "All right, then. On my vows as a priest I swear it. Not to open the letter until I've seen you dead,and then to open it before you're buried""Good, good!""Mary, please don't worry. This is a fancy of yours, no more. In the morning you'll laugh at it.""I won't see the morning. I'm going to die tonight; I'm not weak enough to wait on the pleasure of seeing youagain. What an anticlimax! I'm going to bed now. Will you take me to the top of the stairs?"He didn't believe her, but he could see it served no purpose to argue, and she was not in the mood to be jolliedout of it. Only God decided when one would die, unless, of the free will He had given, one took one's own life.
And she had said she wouldn't do that. So he helped her pant up the stairs and at the top took her hands in his,bent to kiss them. She pulled them away. "No, not tonight. On my mouth, Ralph! Kiss my mouth as if we werelovers!"By the brilliant light of the chandelier, lit for the party with four hundred wax candles, she saw the disgust in hisface, the instinctive853 recoil854; she wanted to die then, wanted to die so badly she could not wait.
"Mary, I'm a priest! I can't!"She laughed shrilly855, eerily856. "Oh, Ralph, what a sham152 you are! Sham man, sham priest! And to think once youactually had the temerity857 to offer to make love to me! were you so positive I'd refuse? How I wish I hadn't! I'dgive my soul to see you wriggle528 out of it if we could have that night back again! Sham, sham, sham! That's allyou are, Ralph! An impotent, useless sham! Impotent man and impotent priest! I don't think you could get it upand keep it up for the Blessed Virgin858 herself! Have you ever managed to get it up, Father de Bricassart? Sham!"Outside it was not yet dawn, or the lightening before it. Darkness lay soft, thick and very hot over Drogheda.
The revels859 were becoming extremely noisy; if the homestead had possessed next-door neighbors the policewould have been called long since. Someone was vomiting860 copiously861 and revoltingly on the veranda, and under awispy bottle brush two indistinct forms were locked together. Father Ralph avoided the vomiter862 and the lovers,treading silently across the springy new-mown lawn with such torment in his mind he did not know or carewhere he was going. Only that he wanted to be away from her, the awful old spider who was convinced she wasspinning her death cocoon863 on this exquisite night. At such an early hour the heat was not exhausting; there was afaint, heavy stirring in the air, and a stealing of languorous864 perfumes from boronia and roses, the heavenlystillness only tropical and subtropical latitudes865 can ever know. Oh, God, to be alive, to be really alive! Toembrace the night, and living, and be free!
He stopped on the far side of the lawn and stood looking up at the sky, an instinctive aerial searching for God.
Yes, up there somewhere, between the winking866 points of light so pure and unearthly; what was it about the nightsky? That the blue lid of day was lifted, a man permitted glimpses of eternity? Nothing save witnessing thestrewn vista867 of the stars could convince a man that timelessness and God existed. She's right, of course. A sham,a total sham. No priest, no man. Only someone who wishes he knew how to be either. No! Not either! Priest andman cannot coexist-to be a man is to be no priest. Why did I ever tangle868 my feet in her web? Her poison isstrong, perhaps stronger than I guess. What's in the letter? How like Mary to bait me! How much does she know,how much does she simply guess? What is there to know, or guess? Only futility869, and loneliness. Doubt, pain.
Always pain. Yet you're wrong, Mary. I can get it up. It's just that I don't choose to, that I've spent years provingto myself it can be controlled, dominated, subjugated870. For getting it up is the activity of a man, and I am a priest.
Someone was weeping in the cemetery. Meggie, of course. No one else would think of it. He picked up theskirts of his soutane and stepped over the wrought iron railing, feeling it was inevitable that he had not yet donewith Meggie on this night. If he confronted one of the women in his life, he must also deal with the other. Hisamused detachment was coming back; she could not disperse871 that for long, the old spider. The wicked old spider.
God rot her, God rot her!
"Darling Meggie, don't cry," he said, sitting on the dew-wet grass beside her. "Here, I'll bet you don't have adecent handkerchief. Women never do. Take mine and dry your eyes like a good girl."She took it and did as she was told.
"You haven't even changed out of your finery. Have you been sitting here since midnight?""Yes.""Do Bob and Jack know where you are?""I told them I was going to bed.""What's the matter, Meggie?""You didn't speak to me tonight!""Ali! I thought that might be it. Come, Meggie, look at me!" Away in the east was a pearly luster232, a fleeing oftotal darkness, and the Drogheda roosters were shrieking an early welcome to the dawn. So he could see that noteven protracted872 tears could dim the loveliness of her eyes. "Meggie, you were by far the prettiest girl at the party,and it's well known that I come to Drogheda more often than I need. I am a priest and therefore I ought to beabove suspicion-a bit like Caesar's wife comb I'm afraid people don't think so purely873. As priests go I'm young,and not bad-looking." He paused to think how Mary Carson would have greeted that bit of understatement, andlaughed soundlessly. "If I had paid you a skerrick of attention it would have been all over Gilly in record time.
Every party line in the district would have been buzzing with it. Do you know what I mean?" She shook herhead; the cropped curls were growing brighter in the advancing light.
"Well, you're young to come to knowledge of the ways of the world, but you've got to learn, and it al-waysseems to be my province to teach you, doesn't it? I mean people would be saying I was interested in you as aman, not as a priest.""Father!""Dreadful, isn't it?" He smiled. "But that's what people would say, I assure you. You see, Meggie, you're not alittle girl anymore, you're a young lady. But you haven't learned yet to hide your affection for me, so had Istopped to speak to you with all those people looking on, you'd have stared at me in a way which might havebeen misconstrued."She was looking at him oddly, a sudden inscrutability shuttering her gaze, then abruptly she turned her head andpresented him with her profile. "Yes, I see. I was silly not to have seen it.""Now don't you think it's time you went home? No doubt everyone will sleep in, but if someone's awake at theusual time you'll be in the soup. And you can't say you've been with me, Meggie, even to your own family." Shegot up and stood staring down at him. "I'm going, Father. But I wish they knew you better, then they'd neverthink such things of you. It isn't in you, is it?"For some reason that hurt, hurt right down to his soul as Mary Carson's cruel taunts874 had not. "No, Meggie,you're right. It isn't in me." He sprang up, smiling wryly. "Would you think it strange if I said I wished it was?"He put a hand to his head. "No, I don't wish it was at all! Go home, Meggie, go home!"Her face was sad. "Good night, Father."He took her hands in his, bent and kissed them. "Good night, dearest Meggie."He watched her walk across the graves, step over the railing; in the rosebud818 dress her retreating form wasgraceful, womanly and a little unreal. Ashes of roses. "How appropriate," he said to the angel. Cars were roaringaway from Drogheda as he strolled back across the lawn; the party was finally over. Inside, the band was packingaway its instruments, reeling with rum and exhaustion875, and the tired maids and temporary helpers were trying toclear up. Father Ralph shook his head at Mrs. Smith.
"Send everyone to bed, my dear. It's a lot easier to deal with this sort of thing when you're fresh. I'll make sureMrs. Carson isn't angry." "Would you like something to eat, Father?""Good Lord, no! I'm going to bed."In the late afternoon a hand touched his shoulder. He reached for it blindly without the energy to open his eyes,and tried to hold it against his cheek.
"Meggie," he mumbled876.
"Father, Father! Oh, please will you wake up?" At the tone of Mrs. Smith's voice his eyes came suddenly veryawake. "What is it, Mrs. Smith?""It's Mrs. Carson, Father. She's dead."His watch told him it was after six in the evening; dazed and reeling from the heavy torpor877 the day's terribleheat had induced in him, he struggled out of his pajamas878 and into his priest's clothes, threw a narrow purple stolearound his neck and took the oil of extreme unction, the holy water, his big silver cross, his ebony rosary beads879.
It never occurred to him for a moment to wonder if Mrs. Smith was right; he knew the spider was dead. Had shetaken something after all? Pray God if she had, it was neither obviously present in the room nor obvious to adoctor. What possible use it was to administer extreme unction he didn't know. But it had to be done. Let himrefuse and there would be post-mortems, all sorts of complications. Yet it had nothing to do with his suddensuspicion of suicide; simply that to him laying sacred things on Mary Carson's body was obscene.
She was very dead, must have died within minutes of retiring, a good fifteen hours earlier. The windows wereclosed fast, and the room humid from the great flat pans of water she insisted be put in every inconspicuouscorner to keep her skin youthful. There was a peculiar noise in the air; after a stupid moment of wondering herealized what he heard were flies, hordes of flies buzzing, insanely clamoring as they feasted on her, mated onher, laid their eggs on her. "For God's sake, Mrs. Smith, open the windows!" he gasped, moving to the bedside,face pallid.
She had passed out of rigor740 mortis and was again limp, disgustingly so. The staring eyes were mottling, her thinlips black; and everywhere on her were the flies. He had to have Mrs. Smith keep shooing them away as heworked over her, muttering the ancient Latin exhortations880. What a farce881, and she accursed. The smell of her! Oh,God! Worse than any dead horse in the freshness of a paddock. He shrank from touching her in death as he hadin life, especially those flyblown lips. She would be a mass of maggots within hours.
At last it was done. He straightened. "Go to Mr. Cleary at once, Mrs. Smith, and for God's sake tell him to getthe boys working on a coffin right away. No time to have one sent out from Gilly; she's rotting away before ourvery eyes. Dear lord! I feel sick. I'm going to have a bath and I'll leave my clothes outside my door. Burn them.
I'll never get the smell of her out of them."Back in his room in riding breeches and shirt-for he had not packed two soutanes-he remembered the letter, andhis promise. Seven o'clock had struck; he could hear a restrained chaos as maids and temporary helpers flew toclear the party mess away, transform the reception room back into a chapel, ready the house for tomorrow'sfuneral. No help for it, he would have to go into Gilly tonight to pick up another soutane and vestments for theRequiem Mass. Certain things he was never without when he left the presbytery for an out-lying station,carefully strapped220 in compartments in the little black case, his sacraments for birth, death, benediction882, worship,and the vestments suitable for Mass at whatever time of the year it was. But he was an Irishman, and to carry theblack mourning accouterments of a Requiem681 was to tempt81 fate. Paddy's voice echoed in the distance, but hecould not face Paddy at the moment; he knew Mrs. Smith would do what had to be done. Sitting at his windowlooking out over the vista of Drogheda in the dying sun, the ghost gums golden, the mass of red and pink andwhite roses in the garden all empurpled, he took Mary Carson's letter from his case and held it between hishands. But she had insisted he read it before he buried her, and somewhere in his mind a little voice waswhispering that he must read it now, not later tonight after he had seen Paddy and Meggie, but now before he hadseen anyone save Mary Carson.
It contained four sheets of paper; he riffled them apart and saw immediately that the lower two were her will.
The top two were addressed to him, in the form of a letter.
My dearest Ralph,You will have seen that the second document in this envelope is my will. I already have a perfectly good willsigned and sealed in Harry883 Gough's office in Gilly; the will enclosed herein is a much later one, and naturallynullifies the one Harry has.
As a matter of fact I made it only the other day, and had it witnessed by Tom and the fencer, since I understandit is not permissible884 to have any beneficiary witness one's will. It is quite legal, in spite of the fact Harry didn'tdraw it up for me. No court in the land will deny its validity, I assure you.
But why didn't I have Harry draw this testament885 up if I wanted to alter the disposition of my effects? Verysimple, my dear Ralph. I wanted absolutely no one to know of this will's existence apart from you, and me. Thisis the only copy, and you hold it. Not a soul knows that you do. A very important part of my plan.
Do you remember that piece of the Gospel where Satan took Our Lord Jesus Christ up onto a mountaintop, andtempted Him with the whole world? How pleasant it is to know I have a little of Satan's power, and am able totempt the one I love (do you doubt Satan loved Christ? I do not) with the whole world. The contemplation ofyour dilemma886 has considerably887 enlivened my thoughts during the past few years, and the closer I get to dying,the more delightful888 my visions become.
After you've read the will, you'll understand what I mean. While I bum889 in Hell beyond the borders of this life Iknow now, you'll still be in that life, but burning in a hell with fiercer flames than any God could possiblymanufacture. Oh, my Ralph, I've gauged890 you to a nicety! If I never knew how to do anything else, I've alwaysknown how to make the ones I love suffer. And you're far better game than my dear departed Michael ever was.
When I first knew you, you wanted Drogheda and my money, didn't you, Ralph? You saw it as a way to buyback your natural métier. But then came Meggie, and you put your original purpose in cultivating me out of yourmind, didn't you? I became an excuse to visit Drogheda so you could be with Meggie. I wonder could you haveswitched allegiances so easily had you known how much I'm actually worth? Do you know, Ralph? I don't thinkyou have an inkling. I suppose it isn't ladylike to mention the exact sum of one's assets in one's will, so I hadbetter tell you here just to make sure you have all the necessary information at your fingertips when it comes toyour making a decision. Give or take a few hundred thousands, my fortune amounts to some thirteen millionpounds.
I'm getting down toward the foot of the second page, and I can't be bothered turning this into a thesis. Read mywill, Ralph, and after you've read it, decide what you're going to do with it. Will you tender it to Harry Gough forprobate, or will you burn it and never tell a soul it existed. That's the decision you've got to make. I ought to addthat the will in Harry's office is the one I made the year after Paddy came, and leaves everything I have to him.
Just so you know what hangs in the balance. Ralph, I love you, so much I would have killed you for not wantingme, except that this is a far better form of reprisal891. I'm not the noble kind; I love you but I want you to scream inagony. Because, you see, 1 know what your decision will be. I know it as surely as if I could be there, watching.
You'll scream, Ralph, you'll know what agony is. So read on, my beautiful, ambitious priest! Read my will, anddecide your fate.
It was not signed or initialed. He felt the sweat on his forehead, felt it running down the back of his neck fromhis hair. And he wanted to get up that very moment to burn both documents, never read what the second onecontained. But she had gauged her quarry892 well, the gross old spider. Of course he would read on; he was toocurious to resist. God! What had he ever done, to make her want to do this to him? Why did women make himsuffer so? Why couldn't he have been born small, twisted, ugly? If he were so, he might have been happy. Thelast two sheets were covered by the same precise, almost minute writing. As mean and grudging893 as her soul.
I, Mary Elizabeth Carson, being of sound mind and sound body, do hereby declare that this is my last will andtestament, thereby rendering894 null and void any such testaments895 previously896 made by me. Save only for the specialbequests made below, all my worldly goods and moneys and properties I bequeath to the Holy Catholic Churchof Rome, under the hereby stated conditions of bequest897:
First, that the said Holy Catholic Church of Rome, to be called the Church hereafter, knows in what esteem andwith what affection I hold her priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart. It is solely899 because of his kindness, spiritualguidance and unfailing support that I so dispose of my assets. Secondly900, that the bequest shall continue in thefavor of the Church only so long as she appreciates the worth and ability of the said Father Ralph de Bricassart.
Thirdly, that the said Father Ralph de Bricassart be responsible for the administration and channeling of thesemy worldly goods, moneys and properties, as the chief authority in charge of my estate. Fourthly, that upon thedemise of the said Father Ralph de Bricassart, his own last will and testament shall be legally binding in thematter of the further administration of my estate. That is, the Church shall continue in full ownership, but FatherRalph de Bricassart shall be solely responsible for the naming of his successor in administration; he shall not beobliged to select a successor who is either an ecclesiastical or a lay member of the Church.
Fifthly, that the station Drogheda be never sold nor subdivided901. Sixthly, that my brother, Padraic Cleary, beretained as manager of the station Drogheda with the right to dwell in my house, and that he be paid a salary atthe discretion of Father Ralph de Bricassart and no other. Seventhly, that in the event of the death of my brother,the said Padraic Cleary, his widow and children be permitted to remain on the station Drogheda and that theposition of manager shall pass consecutively902 to each of his sons, Robert, John, Hugh, Stuart, James and Patrick,but excluding Francis. Eighthly, that upon the demise of Patrick or whichever son excluding Francis is the lastson remaining, the same rights be permitted the said Padraic Cleary's grandchildren.
Special bequests898:
To Padraic Cleary, the contents of my houses on the station Drogheda. To Eunice Smith, my housekeeper, thatshe remain at a fair salary so long as she desires, and in addition that she be paid the sum of five thousandpounds forthwith, and that upon her retirement903 she be awarded an equitable904 pension.
To Minerva O'Brien and Catherine Donnelly, that they remain at fair salaries so long as they desire, and inaddition that they be paid the sum of one thousand pounds each forthwith, and that upon their retirements905 they beawarded equitable pensions.
To Father Ralph de Bricassart the sum of ten thousand pounds to be paid annually906 so long as he shall live, forhis own private and unquestioned use.
It was duly signed, dated and witnessed.
His room looked west. The sun was setting. The pall34 of dust which came with every summer filled the silent air,and the sun thrust its fingers through the finestrung particles so that it seemed the whole world had turned to goldand purple. Streaky clouds rimmed10 in brilliant fire poked907 silver streamers across the great bloody ball whichhung just above the trees of the far paddocks.
"Bravo!" he said. "I admit, Mary, you've beaten me. A master stroke. I was the fool, not you."He could not see the pages in his hand through the tears, and moved them before they could be blotched.
Thirteen million pounds. Thirteen million pounds! It was indeed what he had been angling for in the days beforeMeggie. And with her coming he had abandoned it, because he couldn't carry on such a campaign in cold bloodto cheat her of her inheritance. But what if he had known how much the old spider was worth? What then? Hehad no idea it was a tenth so much. Thirteen million pounds!
For seven years Paddy and his family had lived in the head stockman's house and worked themselves ragged652 forMary Carson. For what? The niggardly908 wages she paid? Never to Father Ralph's knowledge had Paddycomplained of being shabbily treated, thinking no doubt that when his sister died he would be amply repaid formanaging the property on ordinary stockman's pay, while his sons did stockman's work for rouseabout's wages.
He had made do, and grown to love Drogheda as if it were his own, rightly assuming it would be. "Bravo,Mary!" said Father Ralph again, these first tears since his boyhood dropping from his face onto the backs of hishands, but not onto the paper. Thirteen million pounds, and the chance to be Cardinal de Bricassart yet. AgainstPaddy Cleary, his wife, his sons and Meggie. How diabolically909 well she had read him! Had she stripped Paddy ofeverything, his way would have been clear: he could have taken the will down to the kitchen stove and thrust itinside the firebox without a qualm. But she had made sure Paddy wouldn't want, that after her death he would bemore comfortable on Drogheda than during her life, and that Drogheda could not quite be taken from him. Itsprofits and title, yes, but not the land itself. No, he wouldn't be the owner of that fabulous910 thirteen millionpounds, but he would be well respected, comfortably provided for. Meggie wouldn't go hungry, or be thrownshoeless upon the world. Nor would she be Miss Cleary, either, able to stand on an equal footing with MissCarmichael and that ilk. Quite respectable, socially admissible, but not top drawer. Never top drawer.
Thirteen million pounds. The chance to get out of Gillanbone and perpetual obscurity, the chance to take hisplace within the hierarchy911 of Church administration, the assured goodwill of his peers and superiors. And allwhile he was still young enough to make up the ground he had lost. Mary Carson had made Gillanbone theepicenter of the Archbishop Papal Legate's map with a vengeance; the tremors912 would reach as far as the Vatican.
Rich though the Church was, thirteen million pounds was thirteen million pounds. Not to be sneezed at, even bythe Church. And his was the sole hand which brought it into the fold, his hand acknowledged in blue ink in MaryCarson's own writing. He knew Paddy would never contest the will; so had Mary Carson, God rot her. Oh,certainly Paddy would be furious, would never want to see him again or speak to him again, but his chagrinwouldn't extend to litigation. Was there a decision? Didn't he already know, hadn't he known the moment he readher will what he was going to do? The tears had dried. With his usual grace Father Ralph got to his feet, madesure his shirt was tucked in all the way round, and went to the door. He must get to Gilly, pick up a soutane andvestments. But first he wanted to see Mary Carson again. In spite of the open windows the stench had become areeking fug; no hint of a breeze stirred the limp curtains. With steady tread he crossed to the bed and stoodlooking down. The fly eggs were beginning to hatch maggots in all the wet parts of her face, ballooning gasespuffed up her fat arms and hands to greenish blobs, her skin was breaking down. Oh, God. You disgusting oldspider. You've won, but what a victory. The triumph of one disintegrating caricature of humanity over another.
You can't defeat my Meggie, nor can you take from her what was never yours. I might burn in Hell alongsideyou, but I know the Hell they've got planned for you: to see my indifference to you persist as we rot awaytogether through all eternity ....
Paddy was waiting for him in the hall downstairs, looking sick and bewildered.
"Oh, Father!" he said, coming forward. "Isn't this awful? What a shock! I never expected her to go out like this;she was so well last night! Dear God, what am I going to do?""Have you seen her?""Heaven help me, yes!""Then you know what has to be done. I've never seen a corpse913 decompose so fast. If you don't get her decentlyinto some sort of container within the next few hours you'll have to pour her into a petrol drum. She'll have to beburied first thing in the morning. Don't waste time beautifying her coffin; cover it with roses from the garden orsomething. But get a move on, man! I'm going into Gilly for vestments.""Get back as soon as you can, Father!" Paddy pleaded. But Father Ralph was rather longer than a simple visit tothe presbytery demanded. Before he turned his car in that direction he drove down one of Gillanbone's moreprosperous side streets, to a fairly pretentious dwelling surrounded by a well-laid-out garden.
Harry Gough was just sitting down to his dinner, but came into the parlor when the maid told him who hadcalled.
"Father, will you eat with us? Corned beef and cabbage with boiled potatoes and parsley sauce, and for once thebeef's not too salty.""No, Harry, I can't stay. I just came to tell you Mary Carson died this morning.""Holy Jesus! I was there last night! She seemed so well, Father!" "I know. She was perfectly well when I tookher up the stairs about three, but she must have died almost the moment she retired914. Mrs. Smith found her at sixthis evening. By then she'd been dead so long she was hideous915; the room was shut up like an incubator allthrough the heat of the day. Dear Lord, I pray to forget the sight of her! Unspeakable, Harry, awful.""She'll be buried tomorrow?""She'll have to be.""What time is it? Ten? We must eat dinner as late as the Spaniards in this heat, but no need to worry, it's too lateto start phoning people. Would you like me to do that for you, Father?""Thank you, it would be a great kindness. I only came into Gilly for vestments. I never expected to be saying aRequiem when I started out. I must get back to Drogheda as quickly as I can; they need me. The Mass will be atnine in the morning.""Tell Paddy I'll bring her will with me, so I can deal with it straight after the funeral. You're a beneficiary, too,Father, so I'd appreciate your staying for the reading.""I'm afraid we have a slight problem, Harry. Mary made another will, you see. Last night after she left the partyshe gave me a sealed envelope, and made me promise I'd open it the moment I saw her dead body for myself.
When I did so I found it contained a fresh will.""Mary made a new will? Without me?""It would appear so. I think it was something she had been mulling for a long time, but as to why she chose tobe so secretive about it, I don't know.""Do you have it with you now, Father?""Yes." The priest reached inside his shirt and handed over the sheets of paper, folded small.
The lawyer had no compunction about reading them on the spot. When he finished he looked up, and there wasa great deal in his eyes Father Ralph would rather not have seen. Admiration, anger, a certain contempt. "Well,Father, congratulations! You got the lot after all." He could say it, not being a Catholic.
"Believe me, Harry, it came as a bigger surprise to me than it does to you.""This is the only copy?""As far as I know, yes.""And she gave it to you as late as last night?" "Yes.""Then why didn't you destroy it, make sure poor old Paddy got what's rightfully his? The Church has no right toMary Carson's possessions at all." The priest's fine eyes were bland586. "Ah, but that wouldn't have been fitting,Harry, would it now? It was Mary's property, to dispose of in any manner she wished.""I shall advise Paddy to contest.""I think you should."And on that note they parted. By the time everyone arrived in the morning to see Mary Carson buried, thewhole of Gillanbone and all points of the compass around it would know where the money was going. The diewas cast, there could be no turning back.
It was four in the morning when Father Ralph got through the last gate and into the Home Paddock, for hehadn't hurried on the return drive. All through it he had willed his mind to blankness; he wouldn't let himselfthink. Not of Paddy or of Fee, or. Meggie or that stinking gross thing they had (he devoutly916 hoped) poured intoher coffin. Instead he opened his eyes and his mind to the night, to the ghostly silver of dead trees standinglonely in the gleaming grass, to the heart-of-darkness shadows cast by stands of timber, to the full moon ridingthe heavens like an airy bubble. Once he stopped the car and got out, walked to a wire fence and leaned on itstautness while he breathed in the gums and the bewitching aroma917 of wildflowers. The land was so beautiful, sopure, so indifferent to the fates of the creatures who presumed to rule it. They might put their hands to it, but inthe long run it ruled them. Until they could direct the weather and summon up the rain, it had the upper hand. Heparked his car some distance behind the house and walked slowly toward it. Every window was full of light;faintly from the housekeeper's quarters he could hear the sound of Mrs. Smith leading the two Irish maids in arosary. A shadow moved under the blackness of the wistaria vine; he stopped short, his hackles rising. She hadgot to him in more ways than one, the old spider. But it was only Meggie, patiently waiting for him to comeback. She was in jodhpurs and boots, very much alive.
"You gave me a fright," he said abruptly.
"I'm sorry, Father, I didn't mean to. But I didn't want to be inside there with Daddy and the boys, and Mum isstill down at our house with the babies. I suppose I ought to be praying with Mrs. Smith and Minnie and Cat, butI don't feel like praying for her. That's a sin, isn't it?" He was in no mood to pander918 to the memory of MaryCarson. "I don't think it's a sin, Meggie, whereas hypocrisy919 is. I don't feel like praying for her, either. She wasn't .
. . a very good person." His smile flashed. "So if you've sinned in saying it, so have I, and more seriously at that.
I'm supposed to love everyone, a burden which isn't laid upon you." "Are you all right, Father?""Yes, I'm all right." He looked up at the house, and sighed. "I don't want to be in there, that's all. I don't want tobe where she is until it's light and the demons 200, of the darkness are driven away. If I saddle the horses, willyou ride with me until dawn?"Her hand touched his black sleeve, fell. "I don't want to go inside, either.""Wait a minute while I put my soutane in the car.""I'll go on to the stables."For the first time she was trying to meet him on his ground, adult ground; he could sense the difference in her assurely as he could smell the roses in Mary Carson's beautiful gardens. Roses. Ashes of roses. Roses, roses,everywhere. Petals920 in the grass. Roses of summer, red and white and yellow. Perfume of roses, heavy and sweetin the night. Pink roses, bleached by the moon to ashes. Ashes of roses, ashes of roses. My Meggie, I haveforsaken you. But can't you see, you've become a threat? Therefore have I crushed you beneath the heel of myambition; you have no more substance to me than a bruised921 rose in the grass. The smell of roses. The smell ofMary Carson. Roses and ashes, ashes of roses.
"Ashes of roses," he said, mounting. "Let's get as far from the smell of roses as the moon. Tomorrow the housewill be full of them."He kicked the chestnut mare and cantered ahead of Meggie down the track to the creek, longing to weep; foruntil he smelled the future adornments of Mary Carson's coffin it had not actually impinged on his thinking brainas an imminent fact. He would be going away very soon. Too many thoughts, too many emotions, all of themungovernable. They wouldn't leave him in Gilly a day after learning the terms of that incredible will; they wouldrecall him to Sydney immediately. Immediately! He fled from his pain, never having known such pain, but itkept pace with him effortlessly. It wasn't something in a vague sometime; it was going to happen immediately.
And he could almost see Paddy's face, the revulsion, the turning away. After this he wouldn't be welcome onDrogheda, and he would never see Meggie again.
The disciplining began then, hammered by hoofs922 and in a sensation of flying. It was better so, better so, betterso. Galloping923 on and on. Yes, it would surely hurt less then, tucked safely in some cell in a bishop's palace, hurtless and less, until finally even the ache faded from consciousness. It had to be better so. Better than staying inGilly to watch her change into a creature he didn't want, then have to marry her one day to some unknown man.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Then what was he doing with her now, riding through the stand of box and coolibah on the far side of thecreek? He couldn't seem to think why, he only felt the pain. Not the pain of betrayal; there wasn't room for that.
Only for the pain of leaving her.
"Father, Father! I can't keep up with you! Slow down, Father, please!" It was the call to duty, and reality. Like aman in slow motion he wrenched924 the mare around, sat it until it had danced out its excitement. And waited forMeggie to catch him up. That was the trouble. Meggie was catching925 him up. Close by them was the roar of theborehead, a great steaming pool smelling of sulphur, with a pipe like a ship's ventilator jetting boiling water intoits depths. All around the perimeter of the little elevated lake like spokes926 from a wheel's hub, the bore drainsdribbled off across the plain whiskered in incongruously emerald grass. The banks of the pool were slimy greymud, and the freshwater crayfish called yabbies lived in the mud. Father Ralph started to laugh. "It smells likeHell, Meggie, doesn't it? Sulphur and brimstone, right here on her own property, in her own backyard. She oughtto recognize the smell when she gets there decked in roses, oughtn't she? Oh, Meggie . . ."The horses were trained to stand on a dangling927 rein483; there were no fences nearby, and no trees closer than half amile away. But there was a log on the side of the pool farthest from the borehead itself, where the water wascooler. It was the seat provided for winter bathers as they dried their feet and legs. Father Ralph sat down andMeggie sat some way from him, turned side on to watch him.
"What's the matter, Father?"It sounded peculiar, his oft-asked question from her lips, to him. He smiled. "I've sold you, my Meggie, soldyou for thirteen million pieces of silver.""Sold me?""A figure of speech. It doesn't matter. Come, sit closer to me. There may not be the chance for us to talktogether again.""While we're in mourning for Auntie, you mean?" She wriggled up the log and sat next to him. "Whatdifference will being in mourning make?" "I don't mean that, Meggie.""You mean because I'm growing up, and people might gossip about us?" "Not exactly. I mean I'm going away."There it was: the meeting of trouble head on, the acceptance of another load. No outcry, no weeping, no stormof protest. Just a tiny shrinking, as if the burden sat askew928, would not distribute itself so she could bear itproperly. And a caught breath, not quite like a sigh. "When?""A matter of days.""Oh, Father! It will be harder than Frank.""And for me harder than anything in my life. I have no consolation. You at least have your family.""You have your God.""Well said, Meggie! You are growing up!"But, tenacious929 female, her mind had returned to the question she had ridden three miles without a chance to ask.
He was leaving, it would be so hard to do without him, but the question had its own importance.
"Father, in the stables you said "ashes of roses." Did you mean the color of my dress?""In a way, perhaps. But I think really I meant something else." "What?""Nothing you'd understand, my Meggie. The dying of an idea which had no right to be born, let alone nurtured930.""There is nothing which has no right to be born, even an idea." He turned his head to watch her. "You knowwhat I'm talking about, don't you?""I think so.""Not everything born is good, Meggie.""No. But if it was born at all, it was meant to be.""You argue like a Jesuit. How old are you?""I'll be seventeen in a month, Father.""And you've toiled931 all seventeen years of it. Well, hard work ages us ahead of our years. What do you thinkabout, Meggie, when you've the time to think?""Oh, about Jims and Patsy and the rest of the boys, about Daddy and Mum, about Hal and Auntie Mary.
Sometimes about growing babies. I'd like that very much. And riding, the sheep. All the things the men talkabout. The weather, the rain, the vegetable garden, the hens, what I'm going to do tomorrow." "Do you dream ofhaving a husband?""No, except I suppose I'll have to have one if I want to grow babies. It isn't nice for a baby to have no father."In spite of his pain he smiled; she was such a quaint mixture of ignorance and morality. Then he swungsideways, took her chin in his hand and stared down at her. How to do it, what had to be done? "Meggie, Irealized something not long ago which I ought to have seen sooner. You weren't being quite truthful932 when youtold me what you thought about, were you?""I. . ." she said, and fell silent.
"You didn't say you thought about me, did you? If there was no guilt456 in it, you would have mentioned my namealongside your father's. I think perhaps it's a good thing I'm going away, don't you? You're a little old to behaving schoolgirl crushes, but you're not a very old almost-seventeen, are you? I like your lack of worldlywisdom, but I know how painful schoolgirl crushes can be; I've suffered enough of them."She seemed about to speak, but in the end her lids fell over tear-bright eyes, she shook her head free.
"Look, Meggie, it's simply a phase, a marker on the road to being a woman. When you've become that woman,you'll meet the man destined933 to be your husband and you'll be far too busy getting on with your life to think ofme, except as an old friend who helped you through some of the terrible spasms934 of growing up. What youmustn't do is get into the habit of dreaming about me in any sort of romantic fashion. I can never regard you theway a husband will. I don't think of you in that light at all, Meggie, --do you understand me? When I say I loveyou, I don't mean I love you as a man. I am a priest, not a man. So don't fill your head with dreams of me. I'mgoing away, and I doubt very much that I'll have time to come back, even on a visit."Her shoulders were bent as if the load was very heavy, but she lifted her head to look directly into his face.
"I won't fill my head with dreams of you, don't worry. I know you're a priest.""I'm not convinced I chose my vocation935 wrongly. It fills a need in me no human being ever could, even you.""I know. I can see it when you say Mass. You have a power. I suppose you must feel like Our Lord.""I can feel every suspended breath in the church, Meggie! As each day goes on I die, and in each morningsaying Mass I am reborn. But is it because I'mGod's chosen priest, or because I hear those awed breaths, know the power I have over every soul present?""Does it matter? It just is.""It would probably never matter to you, but it does to me. I doubt, I doubt."She switched the subject to what mattered to her. "I don't know how I shall get on without you, Father. FirstFrank, now you. Somehow with Hal it's different; I know he's dead and can never come back. But you and Frankare alive! I'll always be wondering how you are, what you're doing, if you're all right, if there's anything I coulddo to help you. I'll even have to wonder if you're still alive, won't I?""I'll be feeling the same, Meggie, and I'm sure that Frank does, too." "No. Frank's forgotten us .... You will,too.""I could never forget you, Meggie, not as long as I live. And for my punishment I'm going to live a long, longtime." He got up and pulled her to her feet, put his arms about her loosely and affectionately. "I think this isgoodbye, Meggie. We can't be alone again.""If you hadn't been a priest, Father, would you have married me?" The title jarred. "Don't call me that all thetime! My name is Ralph." Which didn't answer her question.
Though he held her, he did not have any intention of kissing her. The face raised to his was nearly invisible, forthe moon had set and it was very dark. He could feel her small, pointed breasts low down on his chest; a curioussensation, disturbing. Even more so was the fact that as naturally as if she came into a man's arms every day ofher life, her arms had gone up around his neck, and linked tightly.
He had never kissed anyone as a lover, did not want to now; nor, he thought, did Meggie. A warm salute936 on thecheek, a quick hug, as she would demand of her father were he to go away. She was sensitive and proud; he musthave hurt her deeply when he held up her precious dreams to dispassionate inspection. Undoubtedly937 she was aseager to be done with the farewell as he was. Would it comfort her to know his pain was far worse than hers? Ashe bent his head to come at her cheek she raised herself on tiptoe, and more by luck than good managementtouched his lips with her own. He jerked back as if he tasted the spider's poison, then he tipped his head forwardbefore he could lose her, tried to say something against the sweet shut mouth, and in trying to answer she partedit. Her body seemed to lose all its bones, become fluid, a warm melting darkness; one of his arms was clampedround her waist, the other across her back with its hand on her skull, in her hair, holding her face up to his as iffrightened she would go from him in that very moment, before he could grasp and catalogue this unbelievablepresence who was Meggie. Meggie, and not Meggie, too alien to be familiar, for his Meggie wasn't a woman,didn't feel like a woman, could never be a woman to him. Just as he couldn't be a man to her. The thoughtovercame his drowning senses; he wrenched her arms from about his neck, thrust her away and tried to see herface in the darkness. But her head was down, she wouldn't look at him.
"It's time we were going, Meggie," he said.
Without a word she turned to her horse, mounted and waited for him; usually it was he who waited for her.
Father Ralph had been right. At this time of year Drogheda was awash with roses, so the house was smotheredin them. By eight that morning hardly one bloom was left in the garden. The first of the mourners began to arrivenot long after the final rose was plundered938 from its bush; a light breakfast of coffee and freshly baked, butteredrolls was laid out in the small dining room. After Mary Carson was deposited in the vault a more substantialrepast would be served in the big dining room, to fortify939 the departing mourners on their long ways home. Theword had got around; no need to doubt the efficiency of the Gilly grapevine, which was the party line. While lipsshaped conventional phrases, eyes and the minds behind them speculated, deduced, smiled slyly.
"I hear we're going to lose you, Father," said Miss Carmichael nastily. He had never looked so remote, sodevoid of human feeling as he did that morning in his laceless alb and dull black chasuble with silver cross. Itwas as if he attended only in body, while his spirit moved far away. But he looked down at Miss Carmichaelabsently, seemed to recollect940 himself, and smiled with genuine mirth.
"God moves in strange ways, Miss Carmichael," he said, and went to speak to someone else.
What was on his mind no one could have guessed; it was the coming confrontation941 with Paddy over the will,and his dread341 of seeing Paddy's rage, his need of Paddy's rage and contempt.
Before he began the Requiem Mass he turned to face his congregation; the room was jammed, and reeked so ofroses that open windows could not dissipate their heavy perfume.
"I do not intend to make a long eulogy," he said in his clear, almost Oxford942 diction with its faint Irish underlay943.
"Mary Carson was known to you all. A pillar of the community, a pillar of the Church she loved more than anyliving being."At that point there were those who swore his eyes mocked, but others who maintained just as stoutly944 that theywere dulled with a real and abiding945 grief.
"A pillar of the Church she loved more than any living being," he repeated more clearly still; he was not one toturn away, either. "In her last hour she was alone, yet she was not alone. For in the hour of our death Our LordJesus Christ is with us, within us, bearing the burden of our agony. Not the greatest nor the humblest living beingdies alone, and death is sweet. We are gathered here to pray for her immortal soul, that she whom we loved inlife shall enjoy her just and eternal reward. Let us pray." The makeshift coffin was so covered in roses it couldnot be seen, and it rested upon a small wheeled cart the boys had cannibalized from various pieces of farmequipment. Even so, with the windows gaping257 open and the overpowering scent of roses, they could smell her.
The doctor had been talking, too.
"When I reached Drogheda she was so rotten that I just couldn't hold my stomach," he said on the party line toMartin King. "I've never felt so sorry for anyone in all my life as I did then for Paddy Cleary, not only becausehe's been done out of Drogheda but because he had to shove that awful seething946 heap in a coffin.""Then I'm not volunteering for the office of pallbearer," Martin said, so faintly because of all the receivers downthat the doctor had to make him repeat the statement three times before he understood it. Hence the cart; no onewas willing to shoulder the remains of Mary Carson across the lawn to the vault. And no one was sorry when thevault doors were closed on her and breathing could become normal at last. While the mourners clustered in thebig dining room eating, or trying to look as if they were eating, Harry Gough conducted Paddy, his family,Father Ralph, Mrs. Smith and the two maids to the drawing room. None of the mourners had any intention ofgoing home yet, hence the pretense947 at eating; they wanted to be on hand to see what Paddy looked like when hecame out after the reading of the will. To do him and his family justice, they hadn't comported948 themselves duringthe funeral as if conscious of their elevated status. As goodhearted as ever, Paddy had wept for his sister, and Feelooked exactly as she always did, as if she didn't care what happened to her.
"Paddy, I want you to contest," Harry Gough said after he had read the amazing document through in a hard,indignant voice. "The wicked old bitch!" said Mrs. Smith; though she liked the priest, she was fonder by far ofthe Clearys. They had brought babies and children into her life.
But Paddy shook his head. "No, Harry! I couldn't do that. The property was hers, wasn't it? She was quiteentitled to do what she liked with it. If she wanted the Church to have it, she wanted the Church to have it. I don'tdeny it's a bit of a disappointment, but I'm just an ordinary sort of chap, so perhaps it's for the best. I don't thinkI'd like the responsibility of owning a property the size of Drogheda.""You don't understand, Paddy!" the lawyer said in a slow, distinct voice, as if he were explaining to a child. "Itisn't just Drogheda I'm talking about. Drogheda was the least part of what your sister had to leave, believe me.
She's a major shareholder949 in a hundred gilt-edged companies, she owns steel factories and gold mines, she'sMichar Limited, with a ten-story office building all to herself in Sydney. She was worth more than anyone in thewhole of Australia! Funny, she made me contact the Sydney directors of Michar Limited not four weeks ago, tofind out the exact extent of her assets. When she died she was worth something over thirteen million pounds.""Thirteen million pounds!" Paddy said it as one says the distance from the earth to the sun, something totallyincomprehensible. "That settles it, Harry. I don't want the responsibility of that kind of money." "It's noresponsibility, Paddy! Don't you understand yet? Money like that looks after itself! You'd have nothing to dowith cultivating or harvesting it; there are hundreds of people employed simply to take care of it for you. Contestthe will, Paddy, please! I'll get you the best KC'S in the country and I'll fight it for you all the way to the PrivyCouncil if necessary."Suddenly realizing that his family were as concerned as himself, Paddy turned to Bob and Jack, sitting togetherbewildered on a Florentine marble bench. "Boys, what do you say? Do you want to go after Auntie Mary'sthirteen million quid? If you do I'll contest, not otherwise.""But we can live on Drogheda anyway, isn't that what the will says?" Bob asked.
Harry answered. "No one can turn you off Drogheda so long as even one of your father's grandchildren lives.""We're going to live here in the big house, have Mrs. Smith and the girls to look after us, and earn a decentwage," said Paddy as if he could hardly believe his good fortune rather than his bad.
"Then what more do we want, Jack?" Bob asked his brother. "Don't you agree?""It suits me," said Jack.
Father Ralph moved restlessly. He had not stopped to shed his Requiem vestments, nor had he taken a chair;like a dark and beautiful sorcerer he stood half in the shadows at the back of the room, isolated, his hands hiddenbeneath the black chasuble, his face still, and at the back of the distant blue eyes a horrified, stunned resentment.
There was not even going to be the longed-for chastisement950 of rage or contempt; Paddy was going to hand it allto him on a golden plate of goodwill, and thank him for relieving the Clearys of a burden.
"What about Fee and Meggie?" the priest asked Paddy harshly. "Do you not think enough of your women toconsult them, too?" "Fee?" asked Paddy anxiously.
"Whatever you decide, Paddy. I don't care.""Meggie?""I don't want her thirteen million pieces of silver," Meggie said, her eyes fixed on Father Ralph.
Paddy turned to the lawyer. "Then that's it, Harry. We don't want to contest the will. Let the Church haveMary's money, and welcome." Harry struck his hands together. "God damn it, I hate to see you cheated!" "Ithank my stars for Mary," said Paddy gently. "If it wasn't for her I'd still be trying to scrape a living in NewZealand."As they came out of the drawing room Paddy stopped Father Ralph and held out his hand, in full view of thefascinated mourners clustering in the dining room doorway.
"Father, please don't think there are any hard feelings on our side. Mary was never swayed by another humanbeing in all her life, priest or brother or husband. You take it from me, she did what she wanted to do. You weremighty good to her, and you've been mighty951 good to us. We'll never forget it." The guilt. The burden. AlmostFather Ralph did not move to take that gnarled stained hand, but the cardinal's brain won; he gripped it feverishlyand smiled, agonized952.
"Thank you, Paddy. You may rest assured I'll see you never want for a thing."Within the week he was gone, not having appeared on Drogheda again. He spent the few days packing his scantbelongings, and touring every station in the district where there were Catholic families; save Drogheda. FatherWatkin Thomas, late of Wales, arrived to assume the duties of parish priest to the Gillanbone district, whileFather Ralph de Bricassart became private secretary to Archbishop Cluny Dark. But his work load was light; hehad two undersecretaries. For the most part he was occupied in discovering just what and how much MaryCarson had owned, and in gathering the reins of government together on behalf of the Church.
点击收听单词发音
1 misty | |
adj.雾蒙蒙的,有雾的 | |
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2 strictly | |
adv.严厉地,严格地;严密地 | |
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3 conjured | |
用魔术变出( conjure的过去式和过去分词 ); 祈求,恳求; 变戏法; (变魔术般地) 使…出现 | |
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4 dealing | |
n.经商方法,待人态度 | |
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5 malevolence | |
n.恶意,狠毒 | |
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6 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) | |
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7 wield | |
vt.行使,运用,支配;挥,使用(武器等) | |
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8 loomed | |
v.隐约出现,阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 );隐约出现,阴森地逼近 | |
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9 throbbing | |
a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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10 rimmed | |
adj.有边缘的,有框的v.沿…边缘滚动;给…镶边 | |
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11 ward | |
n.守卫,监护,病房,行政区,由监护人或法院保护的人(尤指儿童);vt.守护,躲开 | |
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12 plodded | |
v.沉重缓慢地走(路)( plod的过去式和过去分词 );努力从事;沉闷地苦干;缓慢进行(尤指艰难枯燥的工作) | |
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13 den | |
n.兽穴;秘密地方;安静的小房间,私室 | |
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14 strut | |
v.肿胀,鼓起;大摇大摆地走;炫耀;支撑;撑开;n.高视阔步;支柱,撑杆 | |
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15 impatience | |
n.不耐烦,急躁 | |
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16 dispense | |
vt.分配,分发;配(药),发(药);实施 | |
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17 awesome | |
adj.令人惊叹的,难得吓人的,很好的 | |
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18 grassy | |
adj.盖满草的;长满草的 | |
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19 mansions | |
n.宅第,公馆,大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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20 imposing | |
adj.使人难忘的,壮丽的,堂皇的,雄伟的 | |
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21 doting | |
adj.溺爱的,宠爱的 | |
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22 quarries | |
n.(采)石场( quarry的名词复数 );猎物(指鸟,兽等);方形石;(格窗等的)方形玻璃v.从采石场采得( quarry的第三人称单数 );从(书本等中)努力发掘(资料等);在采石场采石 | |
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23 eastward | |
adv.向东;adj.向东的;n.东方,东部 | |
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24 austerely | |
adv.严格地,朴质地 | |
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25 veranda | |
n.走廊;阳台 | |
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26 racing | |
n.竞赛,赛马;adj.竞赛用的,赛马用的 | |
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27 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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28 ornamental | |
adj.装饰的;作装饰用的;n.装饰品;观赏植物 | |
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29 plumes | |
羽毛( plume的名词复数 ); 羽毛饰; 羽毛状物; 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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30 meticulously | |
adv.过细地,异常细致地;无微不至;精心 | |
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31 scythed | |
v.(长柄)大镰刀( scythe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32 strew | |
vt.撒;使散落;撒在…上,散布于 | |
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33 dense | |
a.密集的,稠密的,浓密的;密度大的 | |
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34 pall | |
v.覆盖,使平淡无味;n.柩衣,棺罩;棺材;帷幕 | |
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35 pallid | |
adj.苍白的,呆板的 | |
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36 whit | |
n.一点,丝毫 | |
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37 magenta | |
n..紫红色(的染料);adj.紫红色的 | |
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38 hem | |
n.贴边,镶边;vt.缝贴边;(in)包围,限制 | |
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39 hardy | |
adj.勇敢的,果断的,吃苦的;耐寒的 | |
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40 nag | |
v.(对…)不停地唠叨;n.爱唠叨的人 | |
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41 decorative | |
adj.装饰的,可作装饰的 | |
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42 functional | |
adj.为实用而设计的,具备功能的,起作用的 | |
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43 lavish | |
adj.无节制的;浪费的;vt.慷慨地给予,挥霍 | |
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44 rumor | |
n.谣言,谣传,传说 | |
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45 Ford | |
n.浅滩,水浅可涉处;v.涉水,涉过 | |
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46 ram | |
(random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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47 ramps | |
resources allocation and multiproject scheduling 资源分配和多项目的行程安排 | |
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48 smothered | |
(使)窒息, (使)透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 ); 覆盖; 忍住; 抑制 | |
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49 gravel | |
n.砂跞;砂砾层;结石 | |
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50 shearing | |
n.剪羊毛,剪取的羊毛v.剪羊毛( shear的现在分词 );切断;剪切 | |
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51 din | |
n.喧闹声,嘈杂声 | |
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52 fronds | |
n.蕨类或棕榈类植物的叶子( frond的名词复数 ) | |
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53 foliage | |
n.叶子,树叶,簇叶 | |
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54 freckled | |
adj.雀斑;斑点;晒斑;(使)生雀斑v.雀斑,斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55 battered | |
adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损 | |
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56 brass | |
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器 | |
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57 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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58 fissures | |
n.狭长裂缝或裂隙( fissure的名词复数 );裂伤;分歧;分裂v.裂开( fissure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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59 stony | |
adj.石头的,多石头的,冷酷的,无情的 | |
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60 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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61 specially | |
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地 | |
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62 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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63 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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64 homage | |
n.尊敬,敬意,崇敬 | |
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65 resentment | |
n.怨愤,忿恨 | |
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66 ken | |
n.视野,知识领域 | |
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67 vicissitudes | |
n.变迁,世事变化;变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 );盛衰兴废 | |
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68 preamble | |
n.前言;序文 | |
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69 amble | |
vi.缓行,漫步 | |
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70 plied | |
v.使用(工具)( ply的过去式和过去分词 );经常供应(食物、饮料);固定往来;经营生意 | |
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71 bishop | |
n.主教,(国际象棋)象 | |
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72 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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73 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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74 ordained | |
v.任命(某人)为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 );授予(某人)圣职;(上帝、法律等)命令;判定 | |
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75 remittance | |
n.汇款,寄款,汇兑 | |
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76 cardinal | |
n.(天主教的)红衣主教;adj.首要的,基本的 | |
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77 deliberately | |
adv.审慎地;蓄意地;故意地 | |
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78 blatant | |
adj.厚颜无耻的;显眼的;炫耀的 | |
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79 lavished | |
v.过分给予,滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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80 aloofness | |
超然态度 | |
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81 tempt | |
vt.引诱,勾引,吸引,引起…的兴趣 | |
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82 magnetism | |
n.磁性,吸引力,磁学 | |
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83 espouse | |
v.支持,赞成,嫁娶 | |
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84 eyebrow | |
n.眉毛,眉 | |
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85 vows | |
誓言( vow的名词复数 ); 郑重宣布,许愿 | |
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86 renounced | |
v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 );宣布放弃;宣布与…决裂;宣布摒弃 | |
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87 rib | |
n.肋骨,肋状物 | |
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88 vessel | |
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管 | |
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89 smearing | |
污点,拖尾效应 | |
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90 ordination | |
n.授任圣职 | |
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91 unwilling | |
adj.不情愿的 | |
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92 unwillingness | |
n. 不愿意,不情愿 | |
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93 dictates | |
n.命令,规定,要求( dictate的名词复数 )v.大声讲或读( dictate的第三人称单数 );口授;支配;摆布 | |
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94 obedience | |
n.服从,顺从 | |
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95 ardently | |
adv.热心地,热烈地 | |
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96 ardent | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,强烈的,烈性的 | |
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97 unbearably | |
adv.不能忍受地,无法容忍地;慌 | |
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98 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
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99 tinged | |
v.(使)发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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100 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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101 infancy | |
n.婴儿期;幼年期;初期 | |
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102 overtures | |
n.主动的表示,提议;(向某人做出的)友好表示、姿态或提议( overture的名词复数 );(歌剧、芭蕾舞、音乐剧等的)序曲,前奏曲 | |
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103 quaint | |
adj.古雅的,离奇有趣的,奇怪的 | |
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104 fiddle | |
n.小提琴;vi.拉提琴;不停拨弄,乱动 | |
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105 abjured | |
v.发誓放弃( abjure的过去式和过去分词 );郑重放弃(意见);宣布撤回(声明等);避免 | |
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106 obsession | |
n.困扰,无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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107 lone | |
adj.孤寂的,单独的;唯一的 | |
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108 liking | |
n.爱好;嗜好;喜欢 | |
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109 housekeeper | |
n.管理家务的主妇,女管家 | |
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110 pivot | |
v.在枢轴上转动;装枢轴,枢轴;adj.枢轴的 | |
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111 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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112 coup | |
n.政变;突然而成功的行动 | |
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113 lame | |
adj.跛的,(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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114 trolley | |
n.手推车,台车;无轨电车;有轨电车 | |
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115 anchovies | |
n. 鯷鱼,凤尾鱼 | |
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116 mischievously | |
adv.有害地;淘气地 | |
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117 innuendo | |
n.暗指,讽刺 | |
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118 chuckle | |
vi./n.轻声笑,咯咯笑 | |
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119 impudent | |
adj.鲁莽的,卑鄙的,厚颜无耻的 | |
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120 gasped | |
v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 );喘息;倒抽气;很想要 | |
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121 abruptly | |
adv.突然地,出其不意地 | |
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122 tranquilly | |
adv. 宁静地 | |
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123 demurely | |
adv.装成端庄地,认真地 | |
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124 fussy | |
adj.为琐事担忧的,过分装饰的,爱挑剔的 | |
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125 abetter | |
n.教唆者,怂恿者 | |
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126 zeal | |
n.热心,热情,热忱 | |
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127 demise | |
n.死亡;v.让渡,遗赠,转让 | |
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128 shrugged | |
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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129 ominous | |
adj.不祥的,不吉的,预兆的,预示的 | |
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130 creek | |
n.小溪,小河,小湾 | |
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131 miscarriages | |
流产( miscarriage的名词复数 ) | |
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132 interim | |
adj.暂时的,临时的;n.间歇,过渡期间 | |
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133 groaned | |
v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 );发牢骚;抱怨;受苦 | |
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134 savagely | |
adv. 野蛮地,残酷地 | |
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135 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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136 shearer | |
n.剪羊毛的人;剪切机 | |
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137 contractor | |
n.订约人,承包人,收缩肌 | |
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138 bass | |
n.男低音(歌手);低音乐器;低音大提琴 | |
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139 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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140 sparsely | |
adv.稀疏地;稀少地;不足地;贫乏地 | |
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141 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
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142 efficiently | |
adv.高效率地,有能力地 | |
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143 helping | |
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的 | |
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144 tugged | |
v.用力拉,使劲拉,猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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145 tug | |
v.用力拖(或拉);苦干;n.拖;苦干;拖船 | |
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146 relegated | |
v.使降级( relegate的过去式和过去分词 );使降职;转移;把…归类 | |
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147 chaos | |
n.混乱,无秩序 | |
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148 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 | |
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149 swell | |
vi.膨胀,肿胀;增长,增强 | |
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150 furtive | |
adj.鬼鬼崇崇的,偷偷摸摸的 | |
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151 quench | |
vt.熄灭,扑灭;压制 | |
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152 sham | |
n./adj.假冒(的),虚伪(的) | |
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153 horrifying | |
a.令人震惊的,使人毛骨悚然的 | |
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154 spun | |
v.纺,杜撰,急转身 | |
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155 itinerant | |
adj.巡回的;流动的 | |
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156 bogs | |
n.沼泽,泥塘( bog的名词复数 );厕所v.(使)陷入泥沼, (使)陷入困境( bog的第三人称单数 );妨碍,阻碍 | |
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157 parlor | |
n.店铺,营业室;会客室,客厅 | |
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158 spinet | |
n.小型立式钢琴 | |
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159 bustled | |
闹哄哄地忙乱,奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 ); 催促 | |
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160 oafish | |
adj.呆子的,白痴的 | |
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161 yokel | |
n.乡下人;农夫 | |
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162 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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163 banish | |
vt.放逐,驱逐;消除,排除 | |
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164 stunned | |
adj. 震惊的,惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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165 riveted | |
铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 ); 把…固定住; 吸引; 引起某人的注意 | |
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166 isolation | |
n.隔离,孤立,分解,分离 | |
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167 reassure | |
v.使放心,使消除疑虑 | |
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168 stiffened | |
加强的 | |
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169 jack | |
n.插座,千斤顶,男人;v.抬起,提醒,扛举;n.(Jake)杰克 | |
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170 atlas | |
n.地图册,图表集 | |
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171 hip | |
n.臀部,髋;屋脊 | |
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172 linens | |
n.亚麻布( linen的名词复数 );家庭日用织品 | |
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173 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
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174 utensils | |
器具,用具,器皿( utensil的名词复数 ); 器物 | |
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175 shipping | |
n.船运(发货,运输,乘船) | |
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176 berth | |
n.卧铺,停泊地,锚位;v.使停泊 | |
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177 auction | |
n.拍卖;拍卖会;vt.拍卖 | |
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178 crated | |
把…装入箱中( crate的过去式 ) | |
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179 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
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180 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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181 mare | |
n.母马,母驴 | |
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182 seasick | |
adj.晕船的 | |
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183 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
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184 yearned | |
渴望,切盼,向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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185 stifling | |
a.令人窒息的 | |
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186 reeked | |
v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 );散发臭气;发出难闻的气味 (of sth);明显带有(令人不快或生疑的跡象) | |
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187 eked | |
v.(靠节省用量)使…的供应持久( eke的过去式和过去分词 );节约使用;竭力维持生计;勉强度日 | |
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188 stew | |
n.炖汤,焖,烦恼;v.炖汤,焖,忧虑 | |
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189 steward | |
n.乘务员,服务员;看管人;膳食管理员 | |
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190 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 | |
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191 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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192 vomit | |
v.呕吐,作呕;n.呕吐物,吐出物 | |
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193 coma | |
n.昏迷,昏迷状态 | |
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194 bunk | |
n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位;废话 | |
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195 watery | |
adj.有水的,水汪汪的;湿的,湿润的 | |
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196 huddled | |
挤在一起(huddle的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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197 huddle | |
vi.挤作一团;蜷缩;vt.聚集;n.挤在一起的人 | |
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198 furtively | |
adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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199 bellowed | |
v.发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的过去式和过去分词 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫 | |
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200 buffeting | |
振动 | |
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201 monotonous | |
adj.单调的,一成不变的,使人厌倦的 | |
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202 bawl | |
v.大喊大叫,大声地喊,咆哮 | |
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203 bellows | |
n.风箱;发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的名词复数 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫v.发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的第三人称单数 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫 | |
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204 foghorns | |
n.(大雾时发出响亮而低沉的声音以警告其他船只的)雾角,雾喇叭( foghorn的名词复数 ) | |
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205 gaped | |
v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 );张开,张大 | |
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206 throng | |
n.人群,群众;v.拥挤,群集 | |
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207 thronged | |
v.成群,挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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208 winding | |
n.绕,缠,绕组,线圈 | |
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209 merge | |
v.(使)结合,(使)合并,(使)合为一体 | |
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210 awed | |
adj.充满敬畏的,表示敬畏的v.使敬畏,使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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211 myriad | |
adj.无数的;n.无数,极大数量 | |
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212 salvation | |
n.(尤指基督)救世,超度,拯救,解困 | |
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213 seasickness | |
n.晕船 | |
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214 longing | |
n.(for)渴望 | |
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215 nibbled | |
v.啃,一点一点地咬(吃)( nibble的过去式和过去分词 );啃出(洞),一点一点咬出(洞);慢慢减少;小口咬 | |
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216 bonneted | |
发动机前置的 | |
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217 hardily | |
耐劳地,大胆地,蛮勇地 | |
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218 cylinder | |
n.圆筒,柱(面),汽缸 | |
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219 simultaneously | |
adv.同时发生地,同时进行地 | |
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220 strapped | |
adj.用皮带捆住的,用皮带装饰的;身无分文的;缺钱;手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词);用皮带抽打;包扎;给…打绷带 | |
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221 fixedly | |
adv.固定地;不屈地,坚定不移地 | |
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222 indicator | |
n.指标;指示物,指示者;指示器 | |
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223 gathering | |
n.集会,聚会,聚集 | |
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224 hems | |
布的褶边,贴边( hem的名词复数 ); 短促的咳嗽 | |
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225 heralded | |
v.预示( herald的过去式和过去分词 );宣布(好或重要) | |
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226 imminent | |
adj.即将发生的,临近的,逼近的 | |
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227 compartment | |
n.卧车包房,隔间;分隔的空间 | |
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228 compartments | |
n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 );(列车车厢的)隔间;(家具或设备等的)分隔间;隔层 | |
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229 horrified | |
a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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230 eternity | |
n.不朽,来世;永恒,无穷 | |
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231 lust | |
n.性(淫)欲;渴(欲)望;vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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232 luster | |
n.光辉;光泽,光亮;荣誉 | |
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233 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
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234 longingly | |
adv. 渴望地 热望地 | |
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235 squealing | |
v.长声尖叫,用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的现在分词 ) | |
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236 glutted | |
v.吃得过多( glut的过去式和过去分词 );(对胃口、欲望等)纵情满足;使厌腻;塞满 | |
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237 refreshment | |
n.恢复,精神爽快,提神之事物;(复数)refreshments:点心,茶点 | |
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238 rhythmic | |
adj.有节奏的,有韵律的 | |
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239 frantically | |
ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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240 traction | |
n.牵引;附着摩擦力 | |
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241 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
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242 rippling | |
起涟漪的,潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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243 clumps | |
n.(树、灌木、植物等的)丛、簇( clump的名词复数 );(土、泥等)团;块;笨重的脚步声v.(树、灌木、植物等的)丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 );(土、泥等)团;块;笨重的脚步声 | |
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244 clump | |
n.树丛,草丛;vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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245 scorching | |
adj. 灼热的 | |
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246 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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247 soot | |
n.煤烟,烟尘;vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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248 swirled | |
v.旋转,打旋( swirl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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249 gasping | |
adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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250 itching | |
adj.贪得的,痒的,渴望的v.发痒( itch的现在分词 ) | |
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251 corrugated | |
adj.波纹的;缩成皱纹的;波纹面的;波纹状的v.(使某物)起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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252 gilded | |
a.镀金的,富有的 | |
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253 fad | |
n.时尚;一时流行的狂热;一时的爱好 | |
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254 steadily | |
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地 | |
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255 westward | |
n.西方,西部;adj.西方的,向西的;adv.向西 | |
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256 onward | |
adj.向前的,前进的;adv.向前,前进,在先 | |
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257 gaping | |
adj.口的;张口的;敞口的;多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 );张开,张大 | |
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258 squatted | |
v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 );非法擅自占用(土地或房屋);为获得其所有权;而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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259 scowled | |
怒视,生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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260 stunning | |
adj.极好的;使人晕倒的 | |
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261 tantalizingly | |
adv.…得令人着急,…到令人着急的程度 | |
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262 tantalizing | |
adj.逗人的;惹弄人的;撩人的;煽情的v.逗弄,引诱,折磨( tantalize的现在分词 ) | |
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263 wizened | |
adj.凋谢的;枯槁的 | |
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264 chattering | |
n. (机器振动发出的)咔嗒声,(鸟等)鸣,啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的,啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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265 thawed | |
解冻 | |
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266 friendliness | |
n.友谊,亲切,亲密 | |
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267 lesser | |
adj.次要的,较小的;adv.较小地,较少地 | |
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268 consolation | |
n.安慰,慰问 | |
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269 malicious | |
adj.有恶意的,心怀恶意的 | |
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270 disposition | |
n.性情,性格;意向,倾向;排列,部署 | |
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271 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
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272 fusion | |
n.溶化;熔解;熔化状态,熔和;熔接 | |
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273 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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274 blight | |
n.枯萎病;造成破坏的因素;vt.破坏,摧残 | |
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275 inured | |
adj.坚强的,习惯的 | |
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276 derived | |
vi.起源;由来;衍生;导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
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277 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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278 grasslands | |
n.草原,牧场( grassland的名词复数 ) | |
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279 rusty | |
adj.生锈的;锈色的;荒废了的 | |
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280 enchanted | |
adj. 被施魔法的,陶醉的,入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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281 scramble | |
v.爬行,攀爬,杂乱蔓延,碎片,片段,废料 | |
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282 scrambled | |
v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 );攀登;争夺;(军事飞机)紧急起飞 | |
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283 facade | |
n.(建筑物的)正面,临街正面;外表 | |
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284 squeaked | |
v.短促地尖叫( squeak的过去式和过去分词 );吱吱叫;告密;充当告密者 | |
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285 ponderously | |
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286 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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287 curtly | |
adv.简短地 | |
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288 scant | |
adj.不充分的,不足的;v.减缩,限制,忽略 | |
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289 gulch | |
n.深谷,峡谷 | |
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290 willow | |
n.柳树 | |
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291 willows | |
n.柳树( willow的名词复数 );柳木 | |
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292 splendor | |
n.光彩;壮丽,华丽;显赫,辉煌 | |
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293 overflow | |
v.(使)外溢,(使)溢出;溢出,流出,漫出 | |
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294 overflowing | |
n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的,充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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295 plank | |
n.板条,木板,政策要点,政纲条目 | |
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296 poised | |
a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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297 alcove | |
n.凹室 | |
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298 lavatory | |
n.盥洗室,厕所 | |
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299 stank | |
n. (英)坝,堰,池塘 动词stink的过去式 | |
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300 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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301 prim | |
adj.拘泥形式的,一本正经的;n.循规蹈矩,整洁;adv.循规蹈矩地,整洁地 | |
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302 creed | |
n.信条;信念,纲领 | |
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303 crates | |
n. 板条箱, 篓子, 旧汽车 vt. 装进纸条箱 | |
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304 machinery | |
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构 | |
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305 kennels | |
n.主人外出时的小动物寄养处,养狗场;狗窝( kennel的名词复数 );养狗场 | |
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306 labyrinthine | |
adj.如迷宫的;复杂的 | |
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307 maze | |
n.迷宫,八阵图,混乱,迷惑 | |
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308 mammoth | |
n.长毛象;adj.长毛象似的,巨大的 | |
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309 jigsaw | |
n.缕花锯,竖锯,拼图游戏;vt.用竖锯锯,使互相交错搭接 | |
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310 bails | |
(法庭命令缴付的)保释金( bail的名词复数 ); 三柱门上的横木 | |
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311 shacks | |
n.窝棚,简陋的小屋( shack的名词复数 ) | |
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312 hacks | |
黑客 | |
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313 slaughter | |
n.屠杀,屠宰;vt.屠杀,宰杀 | |
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314 conglomeration | |
n.团块,聚集,混合物 | |
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315 drowsily | |
adv.睡地,懒洋洋地,昏昏欲睡地 | |
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316 sluggish | |
adj.懒惰的,迟钝的,无精打采的 | |
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317 vice | |
n.坏事;恶习;[pl.]台钳,老虎钳;adj.副的 | |
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318 gushed | |
v.喷,涌( gush的过去式和过去分词 );滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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319 swarmed | |
密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 ); 云集; 成群地移动; 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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320 territorial | |
adj.领土的,领地的 | |
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321 termites | |
n.白蚁( termite的名词复数 ) | |
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322 skyscrapers | |
n.摩天大楼 | |
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323 scrap | |
n.碎片;废料;v.废弃,报废 | |
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324 rape | |
n.抢夺,掠夺,强奸;vt.掠夺,抢夺,强奸 | |
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325 varied | |
adj.多样的,多变化的 | |
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326 scarlet | |
n.深红色,绯红色,红衣;adj.绯红色的 | |
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327 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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328 chuckled | |
轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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329 lizards | |
n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 ) | |
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330 lithely | |
adv.柔软地,易变地 | |
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331 adorned | |
[计]被修饰的 | |
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332 swollen | |
adj.肿大的,水涨的;v.使变大,肿胀 | |
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333 benign | |
adj.善良的,慈祥的;良性的,无危险的 | |
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334 adder | |
n.蝰蛇;小毒蛇 | |
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335 copper | |
n.铜;铜币;铜器;adj.铜(制)的;(紫)铜色的 | |
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336 lethal | |
adj.致死的;毁灭性的 | |
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337 grasshoppers | |
n.蚱蜢( grasshopper的名词复数 );蝗虫;蚂蚱;(孩子)矮小的 | |
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338 locusts | |
n.蝗虫( locust的名词复数 );贪吃的人;破坏者;槐树 | |
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339 gnats | |
n.叮人小虫( gnat的名词复数 ) | |
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340 moths | |
n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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341 dread | |
vt.担忧,忧虑;惧怕,不敢;n.担忧,畏惧 | |
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342 lurk | |
n.潜伏,潜行;v.潜藏,潜伏,埋伏 | |
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343 lurking | |
潜在 | |
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344 gossamer | |
n.薄纱,游丝 | |
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345 predators | |
n.食肉动物( predator的名词复数 );奴役他人者(尤指在财务或性关系方面) | |
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346 desolately | |
荒凉地,寂寞地 | |
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347 hawks | |
鹰( hawk的名词复数 ); 鹰派人物,主战派人物 | |
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348 calves | |
n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子,腓;腿肚子( calf的名词复数 );牛犊;腓;小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 );(冰川)崩解;生(小牛等),产(犊);使(冰川)崩解 | |
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349 hoot | |
n.鸟叫声,汽车的喇叭声; v.使汽车鸣喇叭 | |
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350 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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351 exultantly | |
adv.狂欢地,欢欣鼓舞地 | |
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352 syrup | |
n.糖浆,糖水 | |
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353 corks | |
n.脐梅衣;软木( cork的名词复数 );软木塞 | |
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354 strings | |
n.弦 | |
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355 baggy | |
adj.膨胀如袋的,宽松下垂的 | |
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356 giggling | |
v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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357 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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358 stimulation | |
n.刺激,激励,鼓舞 | |
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359 perennial | |
adj.终年的;长久的 | |
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360 fowls | |
鸟( fowl的名词复数 ); 禽肉; 既不是这; 非驴非马 | |
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361 superciliously | |
adv.高傲地;傲慢地 | |
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362 halfway | |
adj.中途的,不彻底的,部分的;adv.半路地,在中途,在半途 | |
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363 acting | |
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的 | |
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364 maiden | |
n.少女,处女;adj.未婚的,纯洁的,无经验的 | |
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365 bulged | |
凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 ); 充满; 塞满(某物) | |
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366 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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367 limousine | |
n.豪华轿车 | |
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368 kerosene | |
n.(kerosine)煤油,火油 | |
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369 scribbled | |
v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 );乱画;草草地写;匆匆记下 | |
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370 scraps | |
油渣 | |
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371 laboriously | |
adv.艰苦地;费力地;辛勤地;(文体等)佶屈聱牙地 | |
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372 zigzagging | |
v.弯弯曲曲地走路,曲折地前进( zigzag的现在分词 );盘陀 | |
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373 squatter | |
n.擅自占地者 | |
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374 overalls | |
n.(复)工装裤;长罩衣 | |
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375 apprentices | |
学徒,徒弟( apprentice的名词复数 ) | |
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376 mediocrely | |
普通的; 中等的; 质量中等偏下的; 碌 | |
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377 monsoons | |
n.(南亚、尤指印度洋的)季风( monsoon的名词复数 );(与季风相伴的)雨季;(南亚地区的)雨季 | |
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378 captious | |
adj.难讨好的,吹毛求疵的 | |
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379 drenching | |
n.湿透v.使湿透( drench的现在分词 );在某人(某物)上大量使用(某液体) | |
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380 sodden | |
adj.浑身湿透的;v.使浸透;使呆头呆脑 | |
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381 shreds | |
v.撕碎,切碎( shred的第三人称单数 );用撕毁机撕毁(文件) | |
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382 deluge | |
n./vt.洪水,暴雨,使泛滥 | |
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383 chestnut | |
n.栗树,栗子 | |
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384 sinewy | |
adj.多腱的,强壮有力的 | |
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385 flannel | |
n.法兰绒;法兰绒衣服 | |
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386 wryly | |
adv. 挖苦地,嘲弄地 | |
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387 hatred | |
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨 | |
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388 yelping | |
v.发出短而尖的叫声( yelp的现在分词 ) | |
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389 cavorting | |
v.跳跃( cavort的现在分词 ) | |
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390 flick | |
n.快速的轻打,轻打声,弹开;v.轻弹,轻轻拂去,忽然摇动 | |
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391 brute | |
n.野兽,兽性 | |
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392 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 | |
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393 inadequate | |
adj.(for,to)不充足的,不适当的 | |
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394 sprawled | |
v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词);蔓延;杂乱无序地拓展;四肢伸展坐着(或躺着) | |
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395 fawning | |
adj.乞怜的,奉承的v.(尤指狗等)跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的现在分词 );巴结;讨好 | |
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396 cringing | |
adj.谄媚,奉承 | |
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397 repulsive | |
adj.排斥的,使人反感的 | |
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398 bloody | |
adj.非常的的;流血的;残忍的;adv.很;vt.血染 | |
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399 unearthed | |
出土的(考古) | |
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400 enjoyment | |
n.乐趣;享有;享用 | |
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401 slaked | |
v.满足( slake的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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402 iniquity | |
n.邪恶;不公正 | |
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403 ridge | |
n.山脊;鼻梁;分水岭 | |
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404 trot | |
n.疾走,慢跑;n.老太婆;现成译本;(复数)trots:腹泻(与the 连用);v.小跑,快步走,赶紧 | |
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405 miring | |
v.深陷( mire的现在分词 ) | |
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406 projectiles | |
n.抛射体( projectile的名词复数 );(炮弹、子弹等)射弹,(火箭等)自动推进的武器 | |
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407 foam | |
v./n.泡沫,起泡沫 | |
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408 mishap | |
n.不幸的事,不幸;灾祸 | |
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409 seduce | |
vt.勾引,诱奸,诱惑,引诱 | |
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410 outright | |
adv.坦率地;彻底地;立即;adj.无疑的;彻底的 | |
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411 awareness | |
n.意识,觉悟,懂事,明智 | |
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412 sagged | |
下垂的 | |
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413 ebbed | |
(指潮水)退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 ); 落; 减少; 衰落 | |
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414 zoomed | |
v.(飞机、汽车等)急速移动( zoom的过去式 );(价格、费用等)急升,猛涨 | |
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415 bleached | |
漂白的,晒白的,颜色变浅的 | |
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416 gilt | |
adj.镀金的;n.金边证券 | |
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417 hordes | |
n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 );部落 | |
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418 loquacious | |
adj.多嘴的,饶舌的 | |
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419 succor | |
n.援助,帮助;v.给予帮助 | |
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420 serene | |
adj. 安详的,宁静的,平静的 | |
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421 knuckles | |
n.(指人)指关节( knuckle的名词复数 );(指动物)膝关节,踝v.(指人)指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 );(指动物)膝关节,踝 | |
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422 pristine | |
adj.原来的,古时的,原始的,纯净的,无垢的 | |
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423 collapsed | |
adj.倒塌的 | |
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424 twitching | |
n.颤搐 | |
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425 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
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426 tainting | |
v.使变质( taint的现在分词 );使污染;败坏;被污染,腐坏,败坏 | |
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427 minced | |
v.切碎( mince的过去式和过去分词 );剁碎;绞碎;用绞肉机绞(食物,尤指肉) | |
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428 curried | |
adj.加了咖喱(或咖喱粉的),用咖哩粉调理的 | |
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429 nuns | |
n.(通常指基督教的)修女, (佛教的)尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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430 nun | |
n.修女,尼姑 | |
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431 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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432 epithet | |
n.(用于褒贬人物等的)表述形容词,修饰语 | |
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433 tangible | |
adj.有形的,可触摸的,确凿的,实际的 | |
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434 caned | |
vt.用苔杖打(cane的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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435 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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436 offense | |
n.犯规,违法行为;冒犯,得罪 | |
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437 perimeter | |
n.周边,周长,周界 | |
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438 intrigue | |
vt.激起兴趣,迷住;vi.耍阴谋;n.阴谋,密谋 | |
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439 expressive | |
adj.表现的,表达…的,富于表情的 | |
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440 extraordinarily | |
adv.格外地;极端地 | |
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441 deploying | |
(尤指军事行动)使展开( deploy的现在分词 ); 施展; 部署; 有效地利用 | |
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442 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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443 communal | |
adj.公有的,公共的,公社的,公社制的 | |
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444 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
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445 scoured | |
走遍(某地)搜寻(人或物)( scour的过去式和过去分词 ); (用力)刷; 擦净; 擦亮 | |
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446 stint | |
v.节省,限制,停止;n.舍不得化,节约,限制;连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
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447 caliber | |
n.能力;水准 | |
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448 culling | |
n.选择,大批物品中剔出劣质货v.挑选,剔除( cull的现在分词 ) | |
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449 muster | |
v.集合,收集,鼓起,激起;n.集合,检阅,集合人员,点名册 | |
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450 belly | |
n.肚子,腹部;(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分,膛 | |
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451 apron | |
n.围裙;工作裙 | |
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452 hissed | |
发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 ); 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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453 fleck | |
n.斑点,微粒 vt.使有斑点,使成斑驳 | |
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454 sterile | |
adj.不毛的,不孕的,无菌的,枯燥的,贫瘠的 | |
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455 lecherous | |
adj.好色的;淫邪的 | |
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456 guilt | |
n.犯罪;内疚;过失,罪责 | |
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457 sanity | |
n.心智健全,神智正常,判断正确 | |
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458 doorway | |
n.门口,(喻)入门;门路,途径 | |
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459 killing | |
n.巨额利润;突然赚大钱,发大财 | |
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460 quelled | |
v.(用武力)制止,结束,镇压( quell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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461 schooner | |
n.纵帆船 | |
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462 genially | |
adv.亲切地,和蔼地;快活地 | |
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463 luncheon | |
n.午宴,午餐,便宴 | |
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464 sustenance | |
n.食物,粮食;生活资料;生计 | |
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465 ordeal | |
n.苦难经历,(尤指对品格、耐力的)严峻考验 | |
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466 circumvent | |
vt.环绕,包围;对…用计取胜,智胜 | |
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467 gulp | |
vt.吞咽,大口地吸(气);vi.哽住;n.吞咽 | |
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468 hospitably | |
亲切地,招待周到地,善于款待地 | |
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469 mused | |
v.沉思,冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 );沉思自语说(某事) | |
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470 deplored | |
v.悲叹,痛惜,强烈反对( deplore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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471 proximity | |
n.接近,邻近 | |
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472 parlance | |
n.说法;语调 | |
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473 pulped | |
水果的肉质部分( pulp的过去式和过去分词 ); 果肉; 纸浆; 低级书刊 | |
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474 livestock | |
n.家畜,牲畜 | |
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475 crocheted | |
v.用钩针编织( crochet的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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476 embroidered | |
adj.绣花的 | |
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477 tablecloths | |
n.桌布,台布( tablecloth的名词复数 ) | |
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478 equestrians | |
n.骑手(equestrian的复数形式) | |
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479 precariously | |
adv.不安全地;危险地;碰机会地;不稳定地 | |
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480 prancing | |
v.(马)腾跃( prance的现在分词 ) | |
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481 pricked | |
刺,扎,戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 ); 刺伤; 刺痛; 使剧痛 | |
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482 reining | |
勒缰绳使(马)停步( rein的现在分词 ); 驾驭; 严格控制; 加强管理 | |
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483 rein | |
n.疆绳,统治,支配;vt.以僵绳控制,统治 | |
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484 reins | |
感情,激情; 缰( rein的名词复数 ); 控制手段; 掌管; (成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的)保护带 | |
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485 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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486 pouted | |
v.撅(嘴)( pout的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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487 impersonal | |
adj.无个人感情的,与个人无关的,非人称的 | |
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488 piqued | |
v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 );激起(好奇心) | |
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489 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 | |
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490 vowels | |
n.元音,元音字母( vowel的名词复数 ) | |
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491 stilted | |
adj.虚饰的;夸张的 | |
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492 beguiling | |
adj.欺骗的,诱人的v.欺骗( beguile的现在分词 );使陶醉;使高兴;消磨(时间等) | |
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493 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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494 abreast | |
adv.并排地;跟上(时代)的步伐,与…并进地 | |
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495 puddle | |
n.(雨)水坑,泥潭 | |
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496 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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497 haughty | |
adj.傲慢的,高傲的 | |
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498 gainsay | |
v.否认,反驳 | |
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499 plumb | |
adv.精确地,完全地;v.了解意义,测水深 | |
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500 deigned | |
v.屈尊,俯就( deign的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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501 cynically | |
adv.爱嘲笑地,冷笑地 | |
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502 enchantment | |
n.迷惑,妖术,魅力 | |
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503 luridly | |
adv. 青灰色的(苍白的, 深浓色的, 火焰等火红的) | |
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504 tattered | |
adj.破旧的,衣衫破的 | |
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505 mermaid | |
n.美人鱼 | |
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506 tarnished | |
(通常指金属)(使)失去光泽,(使)变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 ); 玷污,败坏 | |
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507 frieze | |
n.(墙上的)横饰带,雕带 | |
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508 troupe | |
n.剧团,戏班;杂技团;马戏团 | |
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509 trickling | |
n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 );淌;使)慢慢走;缓慢移动 | |
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510 hips | |
abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯,耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 );[建筑学]屋脊;臀围(尺寸);臀部…的 | |
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511 offhand | |
adj.临时,无准备的;随便,马虎的 | |
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512 flexed | |
adj.[医]曲折的,屈曲v.屈曲( flex的过去式和过去分词 );弯曲;(为准备大干而)显示实力;摩拳擦掌 | |
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513 strutting | |
加固,支撑物 | |
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514 braying | |
v.发出驴叫似的声音( bray的现在分词 );发嘟嘟声;粗声粗气地讲话(或大笑);猛击 | |
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515 elite | |
n.精英阶层;实力集团;adj.杰出的,卓越的 | |
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516 flay | |
vt.剥皮;痛骂 | |
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517 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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518 gorging | |
v.(用食物把自己)塞饱,填饱( gorge的现在分词 );作呕 | |
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519 boxer | |
n.制箱者,拳击手 | |
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520 boxers | |
n.拳击短裤;(尤指职业)拳击手( boxer的名词复数 );拳师狗 | |
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521 lookout | |
n.注意,前途,瞭望台 | |
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522 elusive | |
adj.难以表达(捉摸)的;令人困惑的;逃避的 | |
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523 clinch | |
v.敲弯,钉牢;确定;扭住对方 [参]clench | |
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524 titanic | |
adj.巨人的,庞大的,强大的 | |
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525 meted | |
v.(对某人)施以,给予(处罚等)( mete的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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526 swelling | |
n.肿胀 | |
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527 wriggled | |
v.扭动,蠕动,蜿蜒行进( wriggle的过去式和过去分词 );(使身体某一部位)扭动;耍滑不做,逃避(应做的事等) | |
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528 wriggle | |
v./n.蠕动,扭动;蜿蜒 | |
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529 sobbing | |
<主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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530 gorge | |
n.咽喉,胃,暴食,山峡;v.塞饱,狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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531 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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532 snarled | |
v.(指狗)吠,嗥叫, (人)咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 );咆哮着说,厉声地说 | |
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533 bind | |
vt.捆,包扎;装订;约束;使凝固;vi.变硬 | |
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534 binding | |
有约束力的,有效的,应遵守的 | |
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535 tartly | |
adv.辛辣地,刻薄地 | |
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536 justify | |
vt.证明…正当(或有理),为…辩护 | |
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537 tormenting | |
使痛苦的,使苦恼的 | |
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538 torment | |
n.折磨;令人痛苦的东西(人);vt.折磨;纠缠 | |
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539 bracelet | |
n.手镯,臂镯 | |
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540 trophy | |
n.优胜旗,奖品,奖杯,战胜品,纪念品 | |
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541 ruby | |
n.红宝石,红宝石色 | |
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542 sapphire | |
n.青玉,蓝宝石;adj.天蓝色的 | |
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543 bracelets | |
n.手镯,臂镯( bracelet的名词复数 ) | |
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544 starched | |
adj.浆硬的,硬挺的,拘泥刻板的v.把(衣服、床单等)浆一浆( starch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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545 chafe | |
v.擦伤;冲洗;惹怒 | |
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546 chafed | |
v.擦热(尤指皮肤)( chafe的过去式 );擦痛;发怒;惹怒 | |
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547 seafood | |
n.海产食品,海味,海鲜 | |
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548 champagne | |
n.香槟酒;微黄色 | |
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549 digestion | |
n.消化,吸收 | |
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550 smacked | |
拍,打,掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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551 bucolic | |
adj.乡村的;牧羊的 | |
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552 bluff | |
v.虚张声势,用假象骗人;n.虚张声势,欺骗 | |
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553 tracts | |
大片土地( tract的名词复数 ); 地带; (体内的)道; (尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的)短文 | |
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554 federation | |
n.同盟,联邦,联合,联盟,联合会 | |
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555 politic | |
adj.有智虑的;精明的;v.从政 | |
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556 aristocrats | |
n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 ) | |
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557 soothing | |
adj.慰藉的;使人宽心的;镇静的 | |
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558 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 | |
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559 shrilled | |
(声音)尖锐的,刺耳的,高频率的( shrill的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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560 mutual | |
adj.相互的,彼此的;共同的,共有的 | |
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561 breached | |
攻破( breach的现在分词 ); 破坏,违反 | |
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562 rivalry | |
n.竞争,竞赛,对抗 | |
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563 submission | |
n.服从,投降;温顺,谦虚;提出 | |
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564 beseeching | |
adj.恳求似的v.恳求,乞求(某事物)( beseech的现在分词 ) | |
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565 croaked | |
v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 );用粗的声音说 | |
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566 ashen | |
adj.灰的 | |
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567 undone | |
a.未做完的,未完成的 | |
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568 drearily | |
沉寂地,厌倦地,可怕地 | |
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569 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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570 embroiled | |
adj.卷入的;纠缠不清的 | |
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571 remorse | |
n.痛恨,悔恨,自责 | |
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572 replenished | |
补充( replenish的过去式和过去分词 ); 重新装满 | |
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573 debut | |
n.首次演出,初次露面 | |
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574 untied | |
松开,解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 ); 解除,使自由; 解决 | |
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575 darting | |
v.投掷,投射( dart的现在分词 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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576 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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577 junction | |
n.连接,接合;交叉点,接合处,枢纽站 | |
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578 presentiment | |
n.预感,预觉 | |
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579 briskness | |
n.敏捷,活泼 | |
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580 fumbling | |
n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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581 rigid | |
adj.严格的,死板的;刚硬的,僵硬的 | |
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582 toddling | |
v.(幼儿等)东倒西歪地走( toddle的现在分词 );蹒跚行走;溜达;散步 | |
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583 drudgery | |
n.苦工,重活,单调乏味的工作 | |
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584 animated | |
adj.生气勃勃的,活跃的,愉快的 | |
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585 rites | |
仪式,典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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586 bland | |
adj.淡而无味的,温和的,无刺激性的 | |
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587 nucleus | |
n.核,核心,原子核 | |
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588 blurring | |
n.模糊,斑点甚多,(图像的)混乱v.(使)变模糊( blur的现在分词 );(使)难以区分 | |
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589 demons | |
n.恶人( demon的名词复数 );恶魔;精力过人的人;邪念 | |
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590 buffer | |
n.起缓冲作用的人(或物),缓冲器;vt.缓冲 | |
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591 engendered | |
v.产生(某形势或状况),造成,引起( engender的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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592 hostility | |
n.敌对,敌意;抵制[pl.]交战,战争 | |
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593 irritation | |
n.激怒,恼怒,生气 | |
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594 ripples | |
逐渐扩散的感觉( ripple的名词复数 ) | |
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595 knack | |
n.诀窍,做事情的灵巧的,便利的方法 | |
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596 skulls | |
颅骨( skull的名词复数 ); 脑袋; 脑子; 脑瓜 | |
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597 prudent | |
adj.谨慎的,有远见的,精打细算的 | |
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598 albeit | |
conj.即使;纵使;虽然 | |
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599 swarms | |
蜂群,一大群( swarm的名词复数 ) | |
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600 chary | |
adj.谨慎的,细心的 | |
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601 itinerants | |
n.巡回者(如传教士、行商等)( itinerant的名词复数 ) | |
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602 allotted | |
分配,拨给,摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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603 domain | |
n.(活动等)领域,范围;领地,势力范围 | |
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604 fragrant | |
adj.芬香的,馥郁的,愉快的 | |
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605 caustic | |
adj.刻薄的,腐蚀性的 | |
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606 ointment | |
n.药膏,油膏,软膏 | |
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607 prescription | |
n.处方,开药;指示,规定 | |
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608 ulcer | |
n.溃疡,腐坏物 | |
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609 wares | |
n. 货物, 商品 | |
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610 hawking | |
利用鹰行猎 | |
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611 lavishly | |
adv.慷慨地,大方地 | |
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612 tacked | |
用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 ); 附加,增补; 帆船抢风行驶,用粗线脚缝 | |
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613 graveyard | |
n.坟场 | |
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614 seeped | |
v.(液体)渗( seep的过去式和过去分词 );渗透;渗出;漏出 | |
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615 linoleum | |
n.油布,油毯 | |
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616 decompose | |
vi.分解;vt.(使)腐败,(使)腐烂 | |
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617 scrupulously | |
adv.一丝不苟地;小心翼翼地,多顾虑地 | |
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618 alluring | |
adj.吸引人的,迷人的 | |
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619 whacked | |
a.精疲力尽的 | |
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620 moodily | |
adv.喜怒无常地;情绪多变地;心情不稳地;易生气地 | |
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621 profusion | |
n.挥霍;丰富 | |
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622 relinquished | |
交出,让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 ); 放弃 | |
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623 malevolent | |
adj.有恶意的,恶毒的 | |
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624 murmur | |
n.低语,低声的怨言;v.低语,低声而言 | |
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625 sardonically | |
adv.讽刺地,冷嘲地 | |
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626 tamper | |
v.干预,玩弄,贿赂,窜改,削弱,损害 | |
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627 writhe | |
vt.挣扎,痛苦地扭曲;vi.扭曲,翻腾,受苦;n.翻腾,苦恼 | |
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628 bereft | |
adj.被剥夺的 | |
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629 friction | |
n.摩擦,摩擦力 | |
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630 gargantuan | |
adj.巨大的,庞大的 | |
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631 perches | |
栖息处( perch的名词复数 ); 栖枝; 高处; 鲈鱼 | |
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632 apprehensive | |
adj.担心的,恐惧的,善于领会的 | |
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633 burrowed | |
v.挖掘(洞穴),挖洞( burrow的过去式和过去分词 );翻寻 | |
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634 skittish | |
adj.易激动的,轻佻的 | |
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635 flickers | |
电影制片业; (通常指灯光)闪烁,摇曳( flicker的名词复数 ) | |
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636 crests | |
v.到达山顶(或浪峰)( crest的第三人称单数 );到达洪峰,达到顶点 | |
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637 foamed | |
泡沫的 | |
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638 cataclysm | |
n.洪水,剧变,大灾难 | |
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639 wrath | |
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒 | |
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640 disintegrating | |
v.(使)破裂[分裂,粉碎],(使)崩溃( disintegrate的现在分词 ) | |
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641 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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642 streaked | |
adj.有条斑纹的,不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 );使布满条纹 | |
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643 eerie | |
adj.怪诞的;奇异的;可怕的;胆怯的 | |
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644 shimmered | |
v.闪闪发光,发微光( shimmer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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645 atmospheric | |
adj.大气的,空气的;大气层的;大气所引起的 | |
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646 mounds | |
土堆,土丘( mound的名词复数 ); 一大堆 | |
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647 slaughtered | |
v.屠杀,杀戮,屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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648 lighter | |
n.打火机,点火器;驳船;v.用驳船运送;light的比较级 | |
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649 bleaching | |
漂白法,漂白 | |
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650 ominously | |
adv.恶兆地,不吉利地;预示地 | |
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651 raggedly | |
破烂地,粗糙地 | |
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652 ragged | |
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的 | |
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653 puff | |
n.一口(气);一阵(风);v.喷气,喘气 | |
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654 wheeze | |
n.喘息声,气喘声;v.喘息着说 | |
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655 laboring | |
n.劳动,操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 );苦干;详细分析;(指引擎)缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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656 deteriorate | |
v.变坏;恶化;退化 | |
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657 wringing | |
淋湿的,湿透的 | |
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658 wring | |
n.扭绞;v.拧,绞出,扭 | |
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659 membrane | |
n.薄膜,膜皮,羊皮纸 | |
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660 respiration | |
n.呼吸作用;一次呼吸;植物光合作用 | |
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661 desperately | |
adv.极度渴望地,绝望地,孤注一掷地 | |
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662 pried | |
v.打听,刺探(他人的私事)( pry的过去式和过去分词 );撬开 | |
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663 lulled | |
vt.使镇静,使安静(lull的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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664 hunched | |
(常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦)耸肩弓身的,伏首前倾的 | |
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665 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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666 shuffling | |
adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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667 esteem | |
n.尊敬,尊重;vt.尊重,敬重;把…看作 | |
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668 hawser | |
n.大缆;大索 | |
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669 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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670 malady | |
n.病,疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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671 coffin | |
n.棺材,灵柩 | |
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672 silhouetted | |
显出轮廓的,显示影像的 | |
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673 inadequacy | |
n.无法胜任,信心不足 | |
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674 obsessive | |
adj. 着迷的, 强迫性的, 分神的 | |
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675 taboos | |
禁忌( taboo的名词复数 ); 忌讳; 戒律; 禁忌的事物(或行为) | |
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676 varnished | |
浸渍过的,涂漆的 | |
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677 hue | |
n.色度;色调;样子 | |
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678 lining | |
n.衬里,衬料 | |
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679 velvet | |
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的 | |
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680 chapel | |
n.小教堂,殡仪馆 | |
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681 requiem | |
n.安魂曲,安灵曲 | |
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682 cemetery | |
n.坟墓,墓地,坟场 | |
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683 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
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684 vault | |
n.拱形圆顶,地窖,地下室 | |
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685 pretentious | |
adj.自命不凡的,自负的,炫耀的 | |
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686 hoops | |
n.箍( hoop的名词复数 );(篮球)篮圈;(旧时儿童玩的)大环子;(两端埋在地里的)小铁弓 | |
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687 brawl | |
n.大声争吵,喧嚷;v.吵架,对骂 | |
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688 anonymous | |
adj.无名的;匿名的;无特色的 | |
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689 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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690 accusation | |
n.控告,指责,谴责 | |
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691 condemned | |
adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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692 unbearable | |
adj.不能容忍的;忍受不住的 | |
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693 persistence | |
n.坚持,持续,存留 | |
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694 by-product | |
n.副产品,附带产生的结果 | |
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695 succoring | |
v.给予帮助( succor的现在分词 ) | |
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696 hectic | |
adj.肺病的;消耗热的;发热的;闹哄哄的 | |
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697 filthy | |
adj.卑劣的;恶劣的,肮脏的 | |
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698 abominable | |
adj.可厌的,令人憎恶的 | |
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699 wade | |
v.跋涉,涉水;n.跋涉 | |
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700 spat | |
n.口角,掌击;v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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701 incapable | |
adj.无能力的,不能做某事的 | |
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702 swelled | |
增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
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703 withered | |
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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704 paucity | |
n.小量,缺乏 | |
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705 crutching | |
防蝇去毛,结块污毛,(剪毛前)羊身除下的粪污碎毛 | |
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|
706 foul | |
adj.污秽的;邪恶的;v.弄脏;妨害;犯规;n.犯规 | |
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|
707 excrement | |
n.排泄物,粪便 | |
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708 crutched | |
用拐杖支持的,有丁字形柄的,有支柱的 | |
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709 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
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710 rammed | |
v.夯实(土等)( ram的过去式和过去分词 );猛撞;猛压;反复灌输 | |
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711 intestinal | |
adj.肠的;肠壁;肠道细菌 | |
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|
712 parasites | |
寄生物( parasite的名词复数 ); 靠他人为生的人; 诸虫 | |
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|
713 isolated | |
adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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|
714 plundering | |
掠夺,抢劫( plunder的现在分词 ) | |
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|
715 reluctance | |
n.厌恶,讨厌,勉强,不情愿 | |
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716 blandly | |
adv.温和地,殷勤地 | |
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717 bibliophilic | |
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718 chaste | |
adj.贞洁的;有道德的;善良的;简朴的 | |
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719 titillated | |
v.使觉得痒( titillate的过去式和过去分词 );逗引;激发;使高兴 | |
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720 immortal | |
adj.不朽的;永生的,不死的;神的 | |
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|
721 sentimental | |
adj.多愁善感的,感伤的 | |
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722 erratic | |
adj.古怪的,反复无常的,不稳定的 | |
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723 wondrous | |
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地 | |
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|
724 everlasting | |
adj.永恒的,持久的,无止境的 | |
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|
725 doggerel | |
n.拙劣的诗,打油诗 | |
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726 amicable | |
adj.和平的,友好的;友善的 | |
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|
727 galled | |
v.使…擦痛( gall的过去式和过去分词 );擦伤;烦扰;侮辱 | |
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|
728 shafts | |
n.轴( shaft的名词复数 );(箭、高尔夫球棒等的)杆;通风井;一阵(疼痛、害怕等) | |
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|
729 shaft | |
n.(工具的)柄,杆状物 | |
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|
730 curry | |
n.咖哩粉,咖哩饭菜;v.用咖哩粉调味,用马栉梳,制革 | |
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|
731 kapok | |
n.木棉 | |
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|
732 spines | |
n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 );脊椎;(动植物的)刺;书脊 | |
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|
733 skulked | |
v.潜伏,偷偷摸摸地走动,鬼鬼祟祟地活动( skulk的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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734 scuttled | |
v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 );快跑,急走 | |
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|
735 yarned | |
vi.讲故事(yarn的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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|
736 wilderness | |
n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等,荒漠 | |
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|
737 literally | |
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实 | |
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|
738 kenneled | |
v.狗窝( kennel的过去式和过去分词 );养狗场 | |
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|
739 bilious | |
adj.胆汁过多的;易怒的 | |
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|
740 rigor | |
n.严酷,严格,严厉 | |
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741 rigors | |
严格( rigor的名词复数 ); 严酷; 严密; (由惊吓或中毒等导致的身体)僵直 | |
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|
742 tempestuous | |
adj.狂暴的 | |
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|
743 piecemeal | |
adj.零碎的;n.片,块;adv.逐渐地;v.弄成碎块 | |
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|
744 vengeance | |
n.报复,报仇,复仇 | |
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|
745 choirs | |
n.教堂的唱诗班( choir的名词复数 );唱诗队;公开表演的合唱团;(教堂)唱经楼 | |
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|
746 attenuated | |
v.(使)变细( attenuate的过去式和过去分词 );(使)变薄;(使)变小;减弱 | |
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|
747 expiation | |
n.赎罪,补偿 | |
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|
748 entailed | |
使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 ); 需要; 限定继承; 使必需 | |
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|
749 distress | |
n.苦恼,痛苦,不舒适;不幸;vt.使悲痛 | |
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|
750 quenching | |
淬火,熄 | |
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|
751 vitality | |
n.活力,生命力,效力 | |
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|
752 prospect | |
n.前景,前途;景色,视野 | |
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|
753 milky | |
adj.牛奶的,多奶的;乳白色的 | |
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|
754 opaque | |
adj.不透光的;不反光的,不传导的;晦涩的 | |
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|
755 translucent | |
adj.半透明的;透明的 | |
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|
756 cantankerous | |
adj.爱争吵的,脾气不好的 | |
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|
757 refractory | |
adj.倔强的,难驾驭的 | |
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|
758 dwelling | |
n.住宅,住所,寓所 | |
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|
759 conceit | |
n.自负,自高自大 | |
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|
760 avenging | |
adj.报仇的,复仇的v.为…复仇,报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 );为…报复 | |
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|
761 mawkishly | |
adv.mawkish(淡而无味的)的变形 | |
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|
762 placid | |
adj.安静的,平和的 | |
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|
763 arsenal | |
n.兵工厂,军械库 | |
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|
764 evade | |
vt.逃避,回避;避开,躲避 | |
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|
765 guardian | |
n.监护人;守卫者,保护者 | |
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|
766 chunk | |
n.厚片,大块,相当大的部分(数量) | |
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|
767 anticlimax | |
n.令人扫兴的结局;突降法 | |
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|
768 valid | |
adj.有确实根据的;有效的;正当的,合法的 | |
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|
|
769 parody | |
n.打油诗文,诙谐的改编诗文,拙劣的模仿;v.拙劣模仿,作模仿诗文 | |
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|
770 embarrassment | |
n.尴尬;使人为难的人(事物);障碍;窘迫 | |
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|
771 facet | |
n.(问题等的)一个方面;(多面体的)面 | |
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|
772 illicit | |
adj.非法的,禁止的,不正当的 | |
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|
773 diffusing | |
(使光)模糊,漫射,漫散( diffuse的现在分词 ); (使)扩散; (使)弥漫; (使)传播 | |
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|
774 writhed | |
(因极度痛苦而)扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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|
775 humiliation | |
n.羞辱 | |
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|
776 subsided | |
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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|
777 tempted | |
v.怂恿(某人)干不正当的事;冒…的险(tempt的过去分词) | |
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|
778 shameful | |
adj.可耻的,不道德的 | |
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|
779 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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|
780 bestial | |
adj.残忍的;野蛮的 | |
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|
781 anguish | |
n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦,烦恼 | |
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|
782 idol | |
n.偶像,红人,宠儿 | |
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|
783 firmament | |
n.苍穹;最高层 | |
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|
784 reticent | |
adj.沉默寡言的;言不如意的 | |
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|
785 mowed | |
v.刈,割( mow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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|
786 verandas | |
阳台,走廊( veranda的名词复数 ) | |
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|
787 oysters | |
牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
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|
788 prawns | |
n.对虾,明虾( prawn的名词复数 ) | |
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|
|
789 crabs | |
n.蟹( crab的名词复数 );阴虱寄生病;蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 ) | |
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|
|
790 lobster | |
n.龙虾,龙虾肉 | |
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|
|
791 lobsters | |
龙虾( lobster的名词复数 ); 龙虾肉 | |
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|
|
792 ferment | |
vt.使发酵;n./vt.(使)激动,(使)动乱 | |
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|
793 hesitation | |
n.犹豫,踌躇 | |
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|
794 stiffening | |
n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式 | |
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|
|
795 interfere | |
v.(in)干涉,干预;(with)妨碍,打扰 | |
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|
796 aegis | |
n.盾;保护,庇护 | |
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|
797 adoration | |
n.爱慕,崇拜 | |
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|
798 shuffled | |
v.洗(纸牌)( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 );拖着脚步走;粗心地做;摆脱尘世的烦恼 | |
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|
|
799 hoist | |
n.升高,起重机,推动;v.升起,升高,举起 | |
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|
|
800 pigeonhole | |
n.鸽舍出入口;v.把...归类 | |
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|
|
801 wont | |
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯 | |
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|
802 pickets | |
罢工纠察员( picket的名词复数 ) | |
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|
|
803 braces | |
n.吊带,背带;托架( brace的名词复数 );箍子;括弧;(儿童)牙箍v.支住( brace的第三人称单数 );撑牢;使自己站稳;振作起来 | |
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|
|
804 sputtered | |
v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的过去式和过去分词 );发劈啪声;喷出;飞溅出 | |
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|
|
805 fluency | |
n.流畅,雄辩,善辩 | |
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|
806 cramped | |
a.狭窄的 | |
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|
807 puffs | |
n.吸( puff的名词复数 );(烟斗或香烟的)一吸;一缕(烟、蒸汽等);(呼吸或风的)呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 );喷着汽(或烟)移动;吹嘘;吹捧 | |
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|
|
808 earrings | |
n.耳环( earring的名词复数 );耳坠子 | |
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|
809 inspection | |
n.检查,审查,检阅 | |
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|
810 ostrich | |
n.鸵鸟 | |
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|
|
811 ensemble | |
n.合奏(唱)组;全套服装;整体,总效果 | |
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|
812 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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|
813 shrieking | |
v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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|
814 consternation | |
n.大为吃惊,惊骇 | |
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|
815 dubious | |
adj.怀疑的,无把握的;有问题的,靠不住的 | |
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|
816 dowdy | |
adj.不整洁的;过旧的 | |
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|
817 gracefully | |
ad.大大方方地;优美地 | |
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|
818 rosebud | |
n.蔷薇花蕾,妙龄少女 | |
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|
|
819 rosebuds | |
蔷薇花蕾,妙龄少女,初入社交界的少女( rosebud的名词复数 ) | |
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|
|
820 shingle | |
n.木瓦板;小招牌(尤指医生或律师挂的营业招牌);v.用木瓦板盖(屋顶);把(女子头发)剪短 | |
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|
|
821 transformation | |
n.变化;改造;转变 | |
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|
822 severely | |
adv.严格地;严厉地;非常恶劣地 | |
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|
823 flaring | |
a.火焰摇曳的,过份艳丽的 | |
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|
824 habitual | |
adj.习惯性的;通常的,惯常的 | |
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|
825 protruding | |
v.(使某物)伸出,(使某物)突出( protrude的现在分词 );凸 | |
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|
826 sumptuous | |
adj.豪华的,奢侈的,华丽的 | |
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|
|
827 scotch | |
n.伤口,刻痕;苏格兰威士忌酒;v.粉碎,消灭,阻止;adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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|
828 potent | |
adj.强有力的,有权势的;有效力的 | |
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|
|
829 hoarded | |
v.积蓄并储藏(某物)( hoard的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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|
830 depredations | |
n.劫掠,毁坏( depredation的名词复数 ) | |
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|
831 discriminate | |
v.区别,辨别,区分;有区别地对待 | |
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|
832 metaphorically | |
adv. 用比喻地 | |
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|
833 afterward | |
adv.后来;以后 | |
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|
834 lissome | |
adj.柔软的;敏捷的 | |
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|
835 anguished | |
adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式) | |
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|
836 discretion | |
n.谨慎;随意处理 | |
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837 proceedings | |
n.进程,过程,议程;诉讼(程序);公报 | |
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|
838 promptly | |
adv.及时地,敏捷地 | |
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|
839 attuned | |
v.使协调( attune的过去式和过去分词 );调音 | |
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840 wilting | |
萎蔫 | |
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841 homely | |
adj.家常的,简朴的;不漂亮的 | |
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|
842 oozing | |
v.(浓液等)慢慢地冒出,渗出( ooze的现在分词 );使(液体)缓缓流出;(浓液)渗出,慢慢流出 | |
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843 goodwill | |
n.善意,亲善,信誉,声誉 | |
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|
844 crimson | |
n./adj.深(绯)红色(的);vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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|
845 conjuring | |
n.魔术 | |
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846 malice | |
n.恶意,怨恨,蓄意;[律]预谋 | |
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847 goad | |
n.刺棒,刺痛物;激励;vt.激励,刺激 | |
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848 preclude | |
vt.阻止,排除,防止;妨碍 | |
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|
|
849 restrictions | |
约束( restriction的名词复数 ); 管制; 制约因素; 带限制性的条件(或规则) | |
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850 inflicts | |
把…强加给,使承受,遭受( inflict的第三人称单数 ) | |
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|
851 giggled | |
v.咯咯地笑( giggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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852 sneered | |
讥笑,冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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853 instinctive | |
adj.(出于)本能的;直觉的;(出于)天性的 | |
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|
854 recoil | |
vi.退却,退缩,畏缩 | |
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855 shrilly | |
尖声的; 光亮的,耀眼的 | |
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|
856 eerily | |
adv.引起神秘感或害怕地 | |
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|
857 temerity | |
n.鲁莽,冒失 | |
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858 virgin | |
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的 | |
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|
859 revels | |
n.作乐( revel的名词复数 );狂欢;着迷;陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 );狂欢;着迷;陶醉 | |
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|
860 vomiting | |
吐 | |
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861 copiously | |
adv.丰富地,充裕地 | |
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862 vomiter | |
呕吐的人 | |
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|
863 cocoon | |
n.茧 | |
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|
864 languorous | |
adj.怠惰的,没精打采的 | |
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|
865 latitudes | |
纬度 | |
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866 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 | |
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|
|
867 vista | |
n.远景,深景,展望,回想 | |
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|
|
868 tangle | |
n.纠缠;缠结;混乱;v.(使)缠绕;变乱 | |
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869 futility | |
n.无用 | |
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|
870 subjugated | |
v.征服,降伏( subjugate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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871 disperse | |
vi.使分散;使消失;vt.分散;驱散 | |
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|
872 protracted | |
adj.拖延的;延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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|
873 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
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|
874 taunts | |
嘲弄的言语,嘲笑,奚落( taunt的名词复数 ) | |
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|
875 exhaustion | |
n.耗尽枯竭,疲惫,筋疲力尽,竭尽,详尽无遗的论述 | |
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|
|
876 mumbled | |
含糊地说某事,叽咕,咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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|
877 torpor | |
n.迟钝;麻木;(动物的)冬眠 | |
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|
|
878 pajamas | |
n.睡衣裤 | |
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|
879 beads | |
n.(空心)小珠子( bead的名词复数 );水珠;珠子项链 | |
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|
|
880 exhortations | |
n.敦促( exhortation的名词复数 );极力推荐;(正式的)演讲;(宗教仪式中的)劝诫 | |
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881 farce | |
n.闹剧,笑剧,滑稽戏;胡闹 | |
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|
882 benediction | |
n.祝福;恩赐 | |
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883 harry | |
vt.掠夺,蹂躏,使苦恼 | |
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884 permissible | |
adj.可允许的,许可的 | |
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|
885 testament | |
n.遗嘱;证明 | |
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886 dilemma | |
n.困境,进退两难的局面 | |
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887 considerably | |
adv.极大地;相当大地;在很大程度上 | |
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888 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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889 bum | |
n.臀部;流浪汉,乞丐;vt.乞求,乞讨 | |
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890 gauged | |
adj.校准的;标准的;量规的;量计的v.(用仪器)测量( gauge的过去式和过去分词 );估计;计量;划分 | |
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891 reprisal | |
n.报复,报仇,报复性劫掠 | |
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892 quarry | |
n.采石场;v.采石;费力地找 | |
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893 grudging | |
adj.勉强的,吝啬的 | |
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894 rendering | |
n.表现,描写 | |
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895 testaments | |
n.遗嘱( testament的名词复数 );实际的证明 | |
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896 previously | |
adv.以前,先前(地) | |
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897 bequest | |
n.遗赠;遗产,遗物 | |
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898 bequests | |
n.遗赠( bequest的名词复数 );遗产,遗赠物 | |
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899 solely | |
adv.仅仅,唯一地 | |
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900 secondly | |
adv.第二,其次 | |
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901 subdivided | |
再分,细分( subdivide的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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902 consecutively | |
adv.连续地 | |
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903 retirement | |
n.退休,退职 | |
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904 equitable | |
adj.公平的;公正的 | |
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905 retirements | |
退休( retirement的名词复数 ); 退职; 退役; 退休的实例 | |
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906 annually | |
adv.一年一次,每年 | |
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907 poked | |
v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 );戳出;拨弄;与(某人)性交 | |
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908 niggardly | |
adj.吝啬的,很少的 | |
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909 diabolically | |
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910 fabulous | |
adj.极好的;极为巨大的;寓言中的,传说中的 | |
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911 hierarchy | |
n.等级制度;统治集团,领导层 | |
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912 tremors | |
震颤( tremor的名词复数 ); 战栗; 震颤声; 大地的轻微震动 | |
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913 corpse | |
n.尸体,死尸 | |
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914 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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915 hideous | |
adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的 | |
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916 devoutly | |
adv.虔诚地,虔敬地,衷心地 | |
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917 aroma | |
n.香气,芬芳,芳香 | |
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918 pander | |
v.迎合;n.拉皮条者,勾引者;帮人做坏事的人 | |
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919 hypocrisy | |
n.伪善,虚伪 | |
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920 petals | |
n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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921 bruised | |
[医]青肿的,瘀紫的 | |
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922 hoofs | |
n.(兽的)蹄,马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.(兽的)蹄,马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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923 galloping | |
adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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924 wrenched | |
v.(猛力地)扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 );扭伤;使感到痛苦;使悲痛 | |
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925 catching | |
adj.易传染的,有魅力的,迷人的,接住 | |
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926 spokes | |
n.(车轮的)辐条( spoke的名词复数 );轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 | |
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927 dangling | |
悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 ); 摆动不定; 用某事物诱惑…; 吊胃口 | |
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928 askew | |
adv.斜地;adj.歪斜的 | |
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929 tenacious | |
adj.顽强的,固执的,记忆力强的,粘的 | |
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930 nurtured | |
养育( nurture的过去式和过去分词 ); 培育; 滋长; 助长 | |
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931 toiled | |
长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 ); 艰难缓慢地移动,跋涉 | |
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932 truthful | |
adj.真实的,说实话的,诚实的 | |
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933 destined | |
adj.命中注定的;(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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934 spasms | |
n.痉挛( spasm的名词复数 );抽搐;(能量、行为等的)突发;发作 | |
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935 vocation | |
n.职业,行业 | |
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936 salute | |
vi.行礼,致意,问候,放礼炮;vt.向…致意,迎接,赞扬;n.招呼,敬礼,礼炮 | |
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937 undoubtedly | |
adv.确实地,无疑地 | |
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938 plundered | |
掠夺,抢劫( plunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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939 fortify | |
v.强化防御,为…设防;加强,强化 | |
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940 recollect | |
v.回忆,想起,记起,忆起,记得 | |
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941 confrontation | |
n.对抗,对峙,冲突 | |
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942 Oxford | |
n.牛津(英国城市) | |
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943 underlay | |
v.位于或存在于(某物)之下( underlie的过去式 );构成…的基础(或起因),引起n.衬垫物 | |
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944 stoutly | |
adv.牢固地,粗壮的 | |
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945 abiding | |
adj.永久的,持久的,不变的 | |
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946 seething | |
沸腾的,火热的 | |
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947 pretense | |
n.矫饰,做作,借口 | |
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948 comported | |
v.表现( comport的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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949 shareholder | |
n.股东,股票持有人 | |
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950 chastisement | |
n.惩罚 | |
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951 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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952 agonized | |
v.使(极度)痛苦,折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 );苦斗;苦苦思索;感到极度痛苦 | |
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