That’s how our life began at Gipsy’s Acre. We didn’t find another name forthe house. That first evening fixed1 Gipsy’s Acre in our heads.
“We’ll call it Gipsy’s Acre,” said Ellie, “just to show! A kind of challenge,don’t you think? It’s our Acre, and to hell with the gipsy’s warning.”
She was her old gay self again the next day and soon we were busy get-ting ourselves settled in, and getting also to know the neighbourhood andthe neighbours. Ellie and I walked down to the cottage where the gipsywoman lived. I felt it would be a good thing if we found her digging in hergarden. The only time Ellie had seen her before was when she told our for-tunes. If Ellie saw she was just an ordinary old woman—digging up pota-toes—but we didn’t see her. The cottage was shut up. I asked if she weredead but the neighbour I asked shook her head.
“She must have gone away,” she said. “She goes away from time to time,you know. She’s a gipsy really. That’s why she can’t stay in houses. Shewanders away and comes back again.” She tapped her forehead. “Notquite right up here.”
Presently she said, trying to mask curiosity, “You’ve come from the newhouse up there, haven’t you, the one on the top of the hill, that’s just beenbuilt?”
“That’s right,” I said, “we moved in last night.”
“Wonderful-looking place it is,” she said. “We’ve all been up to look at itwhile it was building. Makes a difference, doesn’t it, seeing a house likethat where all those gloomy trees used to be?” She said to Ellie rathershyly, “You’re an American lady, aren’t you, so we heard?”
“Yes,” said Ellie, “I’m American—or I was, but now I’m married to anEnglishman so I’m an Englishwoman.”
“And you’ve come here to settle down and live, haven’t you?”
We said we had.
“Well, I hope you’ll like it, I’m sure.” She sounded doubtful.
“Why shouldn’t we?”
“Oh well, it’s lonely up there, you know. People don’t always like livingin a lonely place among a lot of trees.”
“Gipsy’s Acre,” said Ellie.
“Ah, you know the local name, do you? But the house that was there be-fore was called The Towers. I don’t know why. It hadn’t any towers, atleast not in my time.”
“I think The Towers is a silly name,” said Ellie. “I think we’ll go on call-ing it Gipsy’s Acre.”
“We’ll have to tell the post office if so,” I said, “or we shan’t get any let-ters.”
“No, I suppose we shan’t.”
“Though when I come to think of it,” I said, “would that matter, Ellie?
Wouldn’t it be much nicer if we didn’t get any letters?”
“It might cause a lot of complications,” said Ellie. “We shouldn’t even getour bills.”
“That would be a splendid idea,” I said.
“No, it wouldn’t,” said Ellie. “Bailiffs would come in and camp there.
Anyway,” she said, “I wouldn’t like not to get any letters. I’d want to hearfrom Greta.”
“Never mind Greta,” I said. “Let’s go on exploring.”
So we explored Kingston Bishop3. It was a nice village, nice people in theshops. There was nothing sinister4 about the place. Our domestic helpdidn’t take to it much, but we soon arranged that hired cars should takethem into the nearest seaside town or into Market Chadwell on their daysout. They were not enthusiastic about the location of the house, but it wasnot superstition5 that worried them. I pointed6 out to Ellie nobody could saythe house was haunted because it had been just built.
“No,” Ellie agreed, “it’s not the house. There’s nothing wrong with thehouse. It’s outside. It’s that road where it curves round through the treesand that bit of rather gloomy wood where that woman stood and made mejump so that day.”
“Well, next year,” I said, “we might cut down those trees and plant a lotof rhododendrons or something like that.”
We went on making plans.
Greta came and stayed with us for a weekend. She was enthusiasticabout the house, and congratulated us on all our furnishings and picturesand colour schemes. She was very tactful. After the weekend she said shewouldn’t disturb the honeymooners any longer, and anyway she’d got toget back to her job.
Ellie enjoyed showing her the house. I could see how fond Ellie was ofher. I tried to behave very sensibly and pleasantly but I was glad whenGreta went back to London, because her staying there had been a strainon me.
When we’d been there a couple of weeks we were accepted locally andmade the acquaintance of God. He came one afternoon to call upon us. El-lie and I were arguing about where we’d have a flower border when ourcorrect, to me slightly phoney- looking, manservant came out from thehouse to announce that Major Phillpot was in the drawing room. It wasthen that I said in a whisper to Ellie: “God!” Ellie asked me what I meant.
“Well, the locals treat him like that,” I said.
So we went in and there was Major Phillpot. He was just a pleasant, non-descript man of close on sixty. He was wearing country clothes, rathershabby, he had grey hair going a little thin on top and a short bristlymoustache. He apologized for his wife not being able to come and call onus7. She was something of an invalid8, he said. He sat down and chattedwith us. Nothing he said was remarkable9 or particularly interesting. Hehad the knack10 of making people feel at their ease. He touched quite lightlyon a variety of subjects. He didn’t ask any direct questions, but he soon gotit into his head where our particular interests lay. He talked to me aboutracing and to Ellie about making a garden and what things did well in thisparticular soil. He had been to the States once or twice. He found out thatthough Ellie didn’t care much for race meetings, she was fond of riding.
He told her that if she was going to keep horses she could go up a particu-lar track through the pine woods and she would come out on a goodstretch of moor11 where she could have a gallop12. Then we came to the sub-ject of our house and the stories about Gipsy’s Acre.
“I see you know the local name,” he said, “and all the local superstitions,too, I expect.”
“Gipsies’ warnings in profusion,” I said. “Far too many of them. Mostlyold Mrs. Lee.”
“Oh dear,” said Phillpot. “Poor old Esther: she’s been a nuisance, hasshe?”
“Is she a bit dotty?” I asked.
“Not so much as she likes to make out. I feel more or less responsible forher. I settled her in that cottage,” he said, “not that she’s grateful for it. I’mfond of the old thing though she can be a nuisance sometimes.”
“Fortune-telling?”
“No, not particularly. Why, has she told your fortune?”
“I don’t know if you can call it a fortune,” said Ellie. “It was more awarning to us against coming here.”
“That seems rather odd to me.” Major Phillpot’s rather bristly eyebrowsrose. “She’s usually got a honeyed tongue in fortunes. Handsome stranger,marriage bells, six children and a heap of good fortune and money in yourhand, pretty lady.” He imitated rather unexpectedly the gipsy whine14 ofher voice. “The gipsies used to camp here a lot when I was a boy,” he said.
“I suppose I got fond of them then, though they were a thieving lot, ofcourse. But I’ve always been attracted to them. As long as you don’t expectthem to be law-abiding, they’re all right. Many a tin mug of gipsy stew15 I’vehad as a schoolboy. We felt the family owed Mrs. Lee something, shesaved the life of a brother of mine when he was a child. Fished him out ofa pond when he’d gone through the ice.”
I made a clumsy gesture and knocked a glass ashtray16 off a table. Itsmashed into fragments.
I picked up the pieces and Major Phillpot helped me.
“I expect Mrs. Lee’s quite harmless really,” said Ellie. “I was very foolishto have been so scared.”
“Scared, were you?” His eyebrows13 rose again. “It was as bad as that, wasit?”
“I don’t wonder she was afraid,” I said quickly. “It was almost more likea threat than a warning.”
“A threat!” He sounded incredulous.
“Well, it sounded that way to me. And then the first night we moved inhere something else happened.”
I told him about the stone crashing through the window.
“I’m afraid there are a good many young hooligans about nowadays,” hesaid, “though we haven’t got many of them round here—not nearly as badas some places. Still, it happens, I’m sorry to say.” He looked at Ellie. “I’mvery sorry you were frightened. It was a beastly thing to happen, your firstnight moving in.”
“Oh, I’ve got over it now,” said Ellie. “It wasn’t only that, it was—it wassomething else that happened not long afterwards.”
I told him about that too. We had come down one morning and we hadfound a dead bird skewered17 through with a knife and a small piece of pa-per with it which said in an illiterate18 scrawl19, “Get out of here if you knowwhat’s good for you.”
Phillpot looked really angry then. He said, “You should have reportedthat to the police.”
“We didn’t want to,” I said. “After all, that would only have put whoeverit is even more against us.”
“Well, that kind of thing has got to be stopped,” said Phillpot. Suddenlyhe became the magistrate20. “Otherwise, you know, people will go on withthe thing. Think it’s funny, I suppose. Only—only this sounds a bit morethan fun. Nasty—malicious—It’s not,” he said, rather as though he wastalking to himself, “it’s not as though anyone round here could have agrudge against you, a grudge21 against either of you personally, I mean.”
“No,” I said, “it couldn’t be that because we’re both strangers here.”
“I’ll look into it,” Phillpot said.
He got up to go, looking round him as he did.
“You know,” he said, “I like this house of yours. I didn’t think I should.
I’m a bit of an old square, you know, what used to be called old fogey. Ilike old houses and old buildings. I don’t like all these matchbox factoriesthat are going up all over the country. Big boxes. Like beehives. I likebuildings with some ornament22 on them, some grace. But I like this house.
It’s plain and very modern, I suppose, but it’s got shape and light. Andwhen you look out from it you see things—well, in a different way fromthe way you’ve seen them before. It’s interesting. Very interesting. Whodesigned it? An English architect or a foreigner?”
I told him about Santonix.
“Mm,” he said, “I think I read about him somewhere. Would it havebeen in House and Garden?”
I said he was fairly well known.
“I’d like to meet him sometime, though I don’t suppose I’d know what tosay to him. I’m not artistic23.”
Then he asked us to settle a day to come and have lunch with him andhis wife.
“You can see how you like my house,” he said.
“It’s an old house, I suppose?” I said.
“Built 1720. Nice period. The original house was Elizabethan. That wasburnt down about 1700 and a new one built on the same spot.”
“You’ve always lived here then?” I said. I didn’t mean him personally, ofcourse, but he understood.
“Yes. We’ve been here since Elizabethan times. Sometimes prosperous,sometimes down and out, selling land when things have gone badly, buy-ing it back when things went well. I’ll be glad to show it to you both,” hesaid, and looking at Ellie he said with a smile, “Americans like old houses,I know. You’re the one who probably won’t think much of it,” he said tome.
“I won’t pretend I know much about old things,” I said.
He stumped24 off then. In his car there was a spaniel waiting for him. Itwas a battered25 old car with the paint rubbed off, but I was getting my val-ues by now. I knew that in this part of the world he was still God all right,and he’d set the seal of his approval on us. I could see that. He liked Ellie. Iwas inclined to think that he’d liked me, too, although I’d noticed the ap-praising glances which he shot over me from time to time, as though hewas making a quick snap judgment26 on something he hadn’t come acrossbefore.
Ellie was putting splinters of glass carefully in the wastepaper basketwhen I came back into the drawing room.
“I’m sorry it’s broken,” she said regretfully. “I liked it.”
“We can get another like it,” I said. “It’s modern.”
“I know! What startled you, Mike?”
I considered for a moment.
“Something Phillpot said. It reminded me of something that happenedwhen I was a kid. A pal27 of mine at school and I played truant28 and went outskating on a local pond. Ice wouldn’t bear us, silly little asses29 that wewere. He went through and was drowned before anyone could get himout.”
“How horrible.”
“Yes. I’d forgotten all about it until Phillpot mentioned about his ownbrother.”
“I like him, Mike, don’t you?”
“Yes, very much. I wonder what his wife is like.”
We went to lunch with the Phillpots early the following week. It was awhite Georgian house, rather beautiful in its lines, though not particularlyexciting. Inside it was shabby but comfortable. There were pictures ofwhat I took to be ancestors on the walls of the long dining room. Most ofthem were pretty bad, I thought, though they might have looked better ifthey had been cleaned. There was one of a fair-haired girl in pink satinthat I rather took to. Major Phillpot smiled and said:
“You’ve picked one of our best. It’s a Gainsborough, and a good one,though the subject of it caused a bit of trouble in her time. Strongly sus-pected of having poisoned her husband. May have been prejudice, be-cause she was a foreigner. Gervase Phillpot picked her up abroad some-where.”
A few other neighbours had been invited to meet us. Dr. Shaw, an eld-erly man with a kindly30 but tired manner. He had to rush away before wehad finished our meal. There was the Vicar who was young and earnest,and a middle-aged31 woman with a bullying32 voice who bred corgis. Andthere was a tall handsome dark girl called Claudia Hardcastle who seemedto live for horses, though hampered33 by having an allergy34 which gave herviolent hay fever.
She and Ellie got on together rather well. Ellie adored riding and she toowas troubled by an allergy.
“In the States it’s mostly ragwort gives it to me,” she said—“but horsestoo, sometimes. It doesn’t trouble me much nowadays because they havesuch wonderful things that doctors can give you for different kinds of al-lergies. I’ll give you some of my capsules. They’re bright orange. And ifyou remember to take one before you start out you don’t as much assneeze once.”
Claudia Hardcastle said that would be wonderful.
“Camels do it to me worse than horses,” she said. “I was in Egypt lastyear—and the tears just streamed down my face all the way round thePyramids.”
Ellie said some people got it with cats.
“And pillows.” They went on talking about allergies35.
I sat next to Mrs. Phillpot who was tall and willowy and talked exclus-ively about her health in the intervals36 of eating a hearty37 meal. She gaveme a full account of all her various ailments38 and of how puzzled manyeminent members of the medical profession had been by her case. Occa-sionally she made a social diversion and asked me what I did. I parriedthat one, and she made half-hearted efforts to find out whom I knew. Icould have answered truthfully “Nobody,” but I thought it would be wellto refrain—especially as she wasn’t a real snob39 and didn’t really want toknow. Mrs. Corgi, whose proper name I hadn’t caught, was much morethorough in her queries40 but I diverted her to the general iniquity41 and ig-norance of vets42! It was all quite pleasant and peaceful, if rather dull.
Later, as we were making a rather desultory43 tour of the garden, ClaudiaHardcastle joined me.
She said, rather abruptly44, “I’ve heard about you—from my brother.”
I looked surprised. I couldn’t imagine it to be possible that I knew abrother of Claudia Hardcastle’s.
“Are you sure?” I said.
She seemed amused.
“As a matter of fact, he built your house.”
“Do you mean Santonix is your brother?”
“Half-brother. I don’t know him very well. We rarely meet.”
“He’s wonderful,” I said.
“Some people think so, I know.”
“Don’t you?”
“I’m never sure. There are two sides to him. At one time he was goingright down the hill…People wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Andthen—he seemed to change. He began to succeed in his profession in themost extraordinary way. It was as though he was —” she paused for aword—“dedicated.”
“I think he is—just that.”
Then I asked her if she had seen our house.
“No—not since it was finished.”
I told her she must come and see it.
“I shan’t like it, I warn you. I don’t like modern houses. Queen Anne ismy favourite period.”
She said she was going to put Ellie up for the golf club. And they weregoing to ride together. Ellie was going to buy a horse, perhaps more thanone. She and Ellie seemed to have made friends.
When Phillpot was showing me his stables he said a word or two aboutClaudia.
“Good rider to hounds,” he said. “Pity’s she’s mucked up her life.”
“Has she?”
“Married a rich man, years older than herself. An American. Name ofLloyd. It didn’t take. Came apart almost at once. She went back to her ownname. Don’t think she’ll ever marry again. She’s anti man. Pity.”
When we were driving home, Ellie said: “Dull—but nice. Nice people.
We’re going to be very happy here, aren’t we, Mike?”
I said: “Yes, we are.” And took my hand from the steering45 wheel and laidit over hers.
When we got back, I dropped Ellie at the house, and put away the car inthe garage.
As I walked back to the house, I heard a faint twanging of Ellie’s guitar.
She had a rather beautiful old Spanish guitar that must have been worth alot of money. She used to sing to it in a soft low crooning voice. Very pleas-ant to hear. I didn’t know what most of the songs were. American spir-ituals partly, I think, and some old Irish and Scottish ballads—sweet andrather sad. They weren’t pop music or anything of that kind. Perhaps theywere folk songs.
I went round by the terrace and paused by the window before going in.
Ellie was singing one of my favourites. I don’t know what it was called.
She was crooning the words softly to herself, bending her head down overthe guitar and gently plucking the strings46. It had a sweet-sad hauntinglittle tune2.
Man was made for Joy and Woe47
And when this we rightly know
Thro’ the World we safely go…
Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery48 are born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night…
She looked up and saw me.
“Why are you looking at me like that, Mike?”
“Like what?”
“You’re looking at me as though you loved me….”
“Of course I love you. How else should I be looking at you?”
“But what were you thinking just then?”
I answered slowly and truthfully: “I was thinking of you as I saw youfirst—standing by a dark fir tree.” Yes, I’d been remembering that first mo-ment of seeing Ellie, the surprise of it and the excitement….
Ellie smiled at me and sang softly:
“Every Morn and every Night
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Sweet Delight,
Some are born to Endless Night.”
One doesn’t recognize in one’s life the really important moments—notuntil it’s too late.
That day when we’d been to lunch with the Phillpots and came back sohappily to our home was such a moment. But I didn’t know then—not un-til afterwards.
I said: “Sing the song about the Fly.” And she changed to a gay littledance tune and sang:
“Little Fly,
Thy Summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
For I dance
And drink, and sing
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.
If thought is life
And strength and breath
And the want
Of thought is death;
Then am I
A happy fly
If I live
Or if I die.”
Oh, Ellie—Ellie….
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收听单词发音
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1
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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onus
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| n.负担；责任 | |
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invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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stew
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| n.炖汤，焖，烦恼；v.炖汤，焖，忧虑 | |
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ashtray
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| n.烟灰缸 | |
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skewered
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| v.（用串肉扦或类似物）串起，刺穿( skewer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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illiterate
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| adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲 | |
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scrawl
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| vt.潦草地书写；n.潦草的笔记，涂写 | |
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magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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stumped
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| 僵直地行走，跺步行走( stump的过去式和过去分词 )； 把（某人）难住； 使为难； （选举前）在某一地区作政治性巡回演说 | |
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battered
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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pal
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truant
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| n.懒惰鬼，旷课者；adj.偷懒的，旷课的，游荡的；v.偷懒，旷课 | |
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asses
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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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middle-aged
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bullying
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| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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allergy
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| n.(因食物、药物等而引起的)过敏症 | |
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allergies
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| n.[医]过敏症；[口]厌恶，反感；（对食物、花粉、虫咬等的）过敏症( allergy的名词复数 )；变态反应，变应性 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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ailments
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| 疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
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snob
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| n.势利小人，自以为高雅、有学问的人 | |
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queries
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| n.问题( query的名词复数 )；疑问；询问；问号v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的第三人称单数 )；询问 | |
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41
iniquity
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| n.邪恶；不公正 | |
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42
vets
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| abbr.veterans （复数）老手，退伍军人；veterinaries （复数）兽医n.兽医( vet的名词复数 )；老兵；退伍军人；兽医诊所v.审查（某人过去的记录、资格等）( vet的第三人称单数 )；调查；检查；诊疗 | |
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desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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steering
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| n.操舵装置 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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