II am not going to pretend that the arrival of our anonymous1 letter did not leave a nasty taste in the mouth. It did. Atthe same time, it soon passed out of my mind. I did not, you see, at that point, take it seriously. I think I remembersaying to myself that these things probably happen fairly often in out-of-the-way villages. Some hysterical2 womanwith a taste for dramatizing herself was probably at the bottom of it. Anyway, if the letters were as childish and silly asthe one we had got, they couldn’t do much harm.
The next incident, if I may put it so, occurred about a week later, when Partridge, her lips set tightly together,informed me that Beatrice, the daily help, would not be coming today.
“I gather, sir,” said Partridge, “that the girl has been Upset.”
I was not very sure what Partridge was implying, but I diagnosed (wrongly) some stomachic trouble to whichPartridge was too delicate to allude3 more directly. I said I was sorry and hoped she would soon be better.
“The girl is perfectly4 well, sir,” said Partridge. “She is Upset in her Feelings.”
“Oh,” I said rather doubtfully.
“Owing,” went on Partridge, “to a letter she has received. Making, I understand, Insinuations.”
The grimness of Partridge’s eye, coupled with the obvious capital I of Insinuations, made me apprehensive5 that theinsinuations were concerned with me. Since I would hardly have recognized Beatrice by sight if I had met her in thetown so unaware6 of her had I been—I felt a not unnatural7 annoyance8. An invalid9 hobbling about on two sticks ishardly cast for the role of deceiver of village girls. I said irritably10:
“What nonsense!”
“My very words, sir, to the girl’s mother,” said Partridge. “‘Goings On in this house,’ I said to her, ‘there neverhave been and never will be while I am in charge. As to Beatrice,’ I said, ‘girls are different nowadays, and as toGoings On elsewhere I can say nothing.’ But the truth is, sir, that Beatrice’s friend from the garage as she walks outwith got one of them nasty letters too, and he isn’t acting11 reasonable at all.”
“I have never heard anything so preposterous12 in my life,” I said angrily.
“It’s my opinion, sir,” said Partridge, “that we’re well rid of the girl. What I say is, she wouldn’t take on so if therewasn’t something she didn’t want found out. No smoke without fire, that’s what I say.”
I had no idea how horribly tired I was going to get of that particular phrase.
II
That morning, by way of adventure, I was to walk down to the village. (Joanna and I always called it the village,although technically13 we were incorrect, and Lymstock would have been annoyed to hear us.)The sun was shining, the air was cool and crisp with the sweetness of spring in it. I assembled my sticks and startedoff, firmly refusing to permit Joanna to accompany me.
“No,” I said, “I will not have a guardian14 angel teetering along beside me and uttering encouraging chirrups. A mantravels fastest who travels alone, remember. I have much business to transact15. I shall go to Galbraith, Galbraith andSymmington, and sign that transfer of shares, I shall call in at the baker’s and complain about the currant loaf, and Ishall return that book we borrowed. I have to go to the bank, too. Let me away, woman, the morning is all too short.”
It was arranged that Joanna should pick me up with the car and drive me back up the hill in time for lunch.
“That ought to give you time to pass the time of day with everyone in Lymstock.”
“I have no doubt,” I said, “that I shall have seen anybody who is anybody by then.”
For morning in the High Street was a kind of rendezvous16 for shoppers, when news was exchanged.
I did not, after all, walk down to the town unaccompanied. I had gone about two hundred yards, when I heard abicycle bell behind me, then a scrunching17 of brakes, and then Megan Hunter more or less fell off her machine at myfeet.
“Hallo,” she said breathlessly as she rose and dusted herself off.
I rather liked Megan and always felt oddly sorry for her.
She was Symmington the lawyer’s stepdaughter, Mrs. Symmington’s daughter by a first marriage. Nobody talkedmuch about Mr. (or Captain) Hunter, and I gathered that he was considered best forgotten. He was reported to havetreated Mrs. Symmington very badly. She had divorced him a year or two after the marriage. She was a woman withmeans of her own and had settled down with her little daughter in Lymstock “to forget,” and had eventually marriedthe only eligible18 bachelor in the place, Richard Symmington. There were two boys of the second marriage to whomtheir parents were devoted19, and I fancied that Megan sometimes felt odd man out in the establishment. She certainlydid not resemble her mother, who was a small anaemic woman, fadedly pretty, who talked in a thin melancholy20 voiceof servant difficulties and her health.
Megan was a tall awkward girl, and although she was actually twenty, she looked more like a schoolgirlish sixteen.
She had a shock of untidy brown hair, hazel green eyes, a thin bony face, and an unexpected charming one-sidedsmile. Her clothes were drab and unattractive and she usually had on lisle thread stockings with holes in them.
She looked, I decided21 this morning, much more like a horse than a human being. In fact she would have been avery nice horse with a little grooming22.
She spoke23, as usual, in a kind of breathless rush.
“I’ve been up to the farm—you know, Lasher’s—to see if they’d got any duck’s eggs. They’ve got an awfully24 nicelot of little pigs. Sweet! Do you like pigs? I even like the smell.”
“Well-kept pigs shouldn’t smell,” I said.
“Shouldn’t they? They all do round here. Are you walking down to the town? I saw you were alone, so I thoughtI’d stop and walk with you, only I stopped rather suddenly.”
“You’ve torn your stocking,” I said.
Megan looked rather ruefully at her right leg.
“So I have. But it’s got two holes already, so it doesn’t matter very much, does it?”
“Don’t you ever mend your stockings, Megan?”
“Rather. When Mummy catches me. But she doesn’t notice awfully what I do—so it’s lucky in a way, isn’t it?”
“You don’t seem to realize you’re grown up,” I said.
“You mean I ought to be more like your sister? All dolled up?”
I rather resented this description of Joanna.
“She looks clean and tidy and pleasing to the eye,” I said.
“She’s awfully pretty,” said Megan. “She isn’t a bit like you, is she? Why not?”
“Brothers and sisters aren’t always alike.”
“No. Of course. I’m not very like Brian or Colin. And Brian and Colin aren’t like each other.” She paused and said,“It’s very rum, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
Megan replied briefly25: “Families.”
I said thoughtfully, “I suppose they are.”
I wondered just what was passing in her mind. We walked on in silence for a moment or two, then Megan said in arather shy voice:
“You fly, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s how you got hurt?”
“Yes, I crashed.”
Megan said:
“Nobody down here flies.”
“No,” I said. “I suppose not. Would you like to fly, Megan?”
“Me?” Megan seemed surprised. “Goodness, no. I should be sick. I’m sick in a train even.”
She paused, and then asked with that directness which only a child usually displays:
“Will you get all right and be able to fly again, or will you always be a bit of a crock?”
“My doctor says I shall be quite all right.”
“Yes, but is he the kind of man who tells lies?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “In fact, I’m quite sure of it. I trust him.”
“That’s all right then. But a lot of people do tell lies.”
I accepted this undeniable statement of fact in silence.
Megan said in a detached judicial26 kind of way:
“I’m glad. I was afraid you looked bad tempered because you were crocked up for life—but if it’s just natural, it’sdifferent.”
“I’m not bad tempered,” I said coldly.
“Well, irritable27, then.”
“I’m irritable because I’m in a hurry to get fit again—and these things can’t be hurried.”
“Then why fuss?”
I began to laugh.
“My dear girl, aren’t you ever in a hurry for things to happen?”
Megan considered the question. She said:
“No. Why should I be? There’s nothing to be in a hurry about. Nothing ever happens.”
I was struck by something forlorn in the words. I said gently: “What do you do with yourself down here?”
She shrugged28 her shoulders.
“What is there to do?”
“Haven’t you got any hobbies? Do you play games? Have you got friends round about?”
“I’m stupid at games. And I don’t like them much. There aren’t many girls round here, and the ones there are Idon’t like. They think I’m awful.”
“Nonsense. Why should they?”
Megan shook her head.
“Didn’t you go to school at all?”
“Yes, I came back a year ago.”
“Did you enjoy school?”
“It wasn’t bad. They taught you things in an awfully silly way, though.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well—just bits and pieces. Chopping and changing from one thing to the other. It was a cheap school, you know,and the teachers weren’t very good. They could never answer questions properly.”
“Very few teachers can,” I said.
“Why not? They ought to.”
I agreed.
“Of course I’m pretty stupid,” said Megan. “And such a lot of things seem to me such rot. History, for instance.
Why, it’s quite different out of different books!”
“That is its real interest,” I said.
“And grammar,” went on Megan. “And silly compositions. And all the blathering stuff Shelley wrote, twittering onabout skylarks, and Wordsworth going all potty over some silly daffodils. And Shakespeare.”
“What’s wrong with Shakespeare?” I inquired with interest.
“Twisting himself up to say things in such a difficult way that you can’t get at what he means. Still, I like someShakespeare.”
“He would be gratified to know that, I’m sure,” I said.
Megan suspected no sarcasm29. She said, her face lighting30 up:
“I like Goneril and Regan, for instance.”
“Why these two?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They’re satisfactory, somehow. Why do you think they were like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like they were. I mean something must have made them like that?”
For the first time I wondered. I had always accepted Lear’s elder daughters as two nasty bits of goods and had let itgo at that. But Megan’s demand for a first cause interested me.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Oh, it doesn’t really matter. I just wondered. Anyway, it’s only English Literature, isn’t it?”
“Quite, quite. Wasn’t there any subject you enjoyed?”
“Only Maths.”
“Maths?” I said, rather surprised.
Megan’s face had lit up.
“I loved Maths. But it wasn’t awfully well taught. I’d like to be taught Maths really well. It’s heavenly. I thinkthere’s something heavenly about numbers, anyway, don’t you?”
“I’ve never felt it,” I said truthfully.
We were now entering the High Street. Megan said sharply:
“Here’s Miss Griffith. Hateful woman.”
“Don’t you like her?”
“I loathe31 her. She’s always at me to join her foul32 Guides. I hate Guides. Why dress yourself up and go about inclumps, and put badges on yourself for something you haven’t really learnt to do properly? I think it’s all rot.”
On the whole, I rather agreed with Megan. But Miss Griffith had descended33 on us before I could voice my assent34.
The doctor’s sister, who rejoiced in the singularly inappropriate name of Aimée, had all the positive assurance thather brother lacked. She was a handsome woman in a masculine weather-beaten way, with a deep hearty35 voice.
“Hallo, you two,” she bayed at us. “Gorgeous morning, isn’t it? Megan, you’re just the person I wanted to see. Iwant some help addressing envelopes for the Conservative Association.”
Megan muttered something elusive36, propped37 up her bicycle against the kerb and dived in a purposeful way into theInternational Stores.
“Extraordinary child,” said Miss Griffith, looking after her. “Bone lazy. Spends her time mooning about. Must be agreat trial to poor Mrs. Symmington. I know her mother’s tried more than once to get her to take up something—shorthand-typing, you know, or cookery, or keeping Angora rabbits. She needs an interest in life.”
I thought that was probably true, but felt that in Megan’s place I should have withstood firmly any of AiméeGriffith’s suggestions for the simple reason that her aggressive personality would have put my back up.
“I don’t believe in idleness,” went on Miss Griffith. “And certainly not for young people. It’s not as though Meganwas pretty or attractive or anything like that. Sometimes I think the girl’s half-witted. A great disappointment to hermother. The father, you know,” she lowered her voice slightly, “was definitely a wrong ’un. Afraid the child takesafter him. Painful for her mother. Oh, well, it takes all sorts to make a world, that’s what I say.”
“Fortunately,” I responded.
Aimée Griffith gave a “jolly” laugh.
“Yes, it wouldn’t do if we were all made to one pattern. But I don’t like to see anyone not getting all they can outof life. I enjoy life myself and I want everyone to enjoy it too. People say to me you must be bored to death livingdown there in the country all the year round. Not a bit of it, I say. I’m always busy, always happy! There’s alwayssomething going on in the country. My time’s taken up, what with my Guides, and the Institute and variouscommittees—to say nothing of looking after Owen.”
At this minute, Miss Griffith saw an acquaintance on the other side of the street, and uttering a bay of recognitionshe leaped across the road, leaving me free to pursue my course to the bank.
I always found Miss Griffith rather overwhelming, though I admired her energy and vitality38, and it was pleasant tosee the beaming contentment with her lot in life which she always displayed, and which was a pleasant contrast to thesubdued complaining murmurs39 of so many women.
My business at the bank transacted40 satisfactorily, I went on to the offices of Messrs. Galbraith, Galbraith andSymmington. I don’t know if there were any Galbraiths extant. I never saw any. I was shown into RichardSymmington’s inner office which had the agreeable mustiness of a long-established legal firm.
Vast numbers of deed boxes, labelled Lady Hope, Sir Everard Carr, William Yatesby-Hoares, Esq., Deceased, etc.,gave the required atmosphere of decorous county families and legitimate41 long-established business.
Studying Mr. Symmington as he bent42 over the documents I had brought, it occurred to me that if Mrs. Symmingtonhad encountered disaster in her first marriage, she had certainly played safe in her second. Richard Symmington wasthe acme43 of calm respectability, the sort of man who would never give his wife a moment’s anxiety. A long neck witha pronounced Adam’s apple, a slightly cadaverous face and a long thin nose. A kindly44 man, no doubt, a good husbandand father, but not one to set the pulses madly racing45.
Presently Mr. Symmington began to speak. He spoke clearly and slowly, delivering himself of much good senseand shrewd acumen46. We settled the matter in hand and I rose to go, remarking as I did so:
“I walked down the hill with your stepdaughter.”
For a moment Mr. Symmington looked as though he did not know who his stepdaughter was, then he smiled.
“Oh yes, of course, Megan. She—er—has been back from school some time. We’re thinking about finding hersomething to do—yes, to do. But of course she’s very young still. And backward for her age, so they say. Yes, so theytell me.”
I went out. In the outer office was a very old man on a stool writing slowly and laboriously47, a small cheeky-lookingboy and a middle-aged48 woman with frizzy hair and pinze-nez who was typing with some speed and dash.
If this was Miss Ginch I agreed with Owen Griffith that tender passages between her and her employer wereexceedingly unlikely.
I went into the baker’s and said my piece about the currant loaf. It was received with the exclamation49 andincredulity proper to the occasion, and a new currant loaf was thrust upon me in replacement—“fresh from the oventhis minute”—as its indecent heat pressed against my chest proclaimed to be no less than truth.
I came out of the shop and looked up and down the street hoping to see Joanna with the car. The walk had tired mea good deal and it was awkward getting along with my sticks and the currant loaf.
But there was no sign of Joanna as yet.
Suddenly my eyes were held in glad and incredulous surprise.
Along the pavement towards me there came floating a goddess. There is really no other word for it.
The perfect features, the crisply curling golden hair, the tall exquisitely-shaped body! And she walked like agoddess, without effort, seeming to swim nearer and nearer. A glorious, an incredible, a breathtaking girl!
In my intense excitement something had to go. What went was the currant loaf. It slipped from my clutches. I madea dive after it and lost my stick, which clattered50 to the pavement, and I slipped and nearly fell myself.
It was the strong arm of the goddess that caught and held me. I began to stammer51:
“Th-thanks awfully, I’m f-f-frightfully sorry.”
She had retrieved52 the currant loaf and handed it to me together with the stick. And then she smiled kindly and saidcheerfully:
“Don’t mention it. No trouble, I assure you,” and the magic died completely before the flat, competent voice.
A nice healthy-looking well set-up girl, no more.
I fell to reflecting what would have happened if the Gods had given Helen of Troy exactly those flat accents. Howstrange that a girl could trouble your inmost soul so long as she kept her mouth shut, and that the moment she spokethe glamour53 could vanish as though it had never been.
I had known the reverse happen, though. I had seen a little sad monkey-faced woman whom no one would turn tolook at twice. Then she opened her mouth and suddenly enchantment54 had lived and bloomed and Cleopatra had casther spell anew.
Joanna had drawn55 up at the kerb beside me without my noticing her arrival. She asked if there was anything thematter.
“Nothing,” I said, pulling myself together. “I was reflecting on Helen of Troy and others.”
“What a funny place to do it,” said Joanna. “You looked most odd, standing56 there clasping currant bread to yourbreast with your mouth wide open.”
“I’ve had a shock,” I said. “I have been transplanted to Ilium and back again.”
“Do you know who that is?” I added, indicating a retreating back that was swimming gracefully57 away.
Peering after the girl Joanna said that it was the Symmingtons’ nursery governess.
“Is that what struck you all of a heap?” she asked. “She’s good-looking, but a bit of a wet fish.”
“I know,” I said. “Just a nice kind girl. And I’d been thinking her Aphrodite.”
Joanna opened the door of the car and I got in.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” she said. “Some people have lots of looks and absolutely no S.A. That girl has. It seems sucha pity.”
I said that if she was a nursery governess it was probably just as well.
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anonymous
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hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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allude
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perfectly
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apprehensive
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unaware
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unnatural
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annoyance
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invalid
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irritably
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acting
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preposterous
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technically
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guardian
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transact
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rendezvous
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scrunching
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eligible
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devoted
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melancholy
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decided
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grooming
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spoke
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awfully
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briefly
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judicial
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irritable
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shrugged
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sarcasm
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lighting
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loathe
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foul
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descended
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assent
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hearty
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elusive
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propped
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vitality
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murmurs
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transacted
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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bent
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acme
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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racing
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acumen
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laboriously
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middle-aged
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exclamation
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clattered
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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51
stammer
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| n.结巴，口吃；v.结结巴巴地说 | |
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52
retrieved
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| v.取回( retrieve的过去式和过去分词 )；恢复；寻回；检索（储存的信息） | |
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53
glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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54
enchantment
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| n.迷惑，妖术，魅力 | |
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55
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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