That afternoon Sophia, too busy with her own affairs to notice anything abnormal in the relations between her mother and Constance, and quite ignorant that there had been an unsuccessful plot against her, went forth1 to call upon Miss Chetwynd, with whom she had remained very friendly: she considered that she and Miss Chetwynd formed an aristocracy of intellect, and the family indeed tacitly admitted this. She practised no secrecy2 in her departure from the shop; she merely dressed, in her second-best hoop3, and went, having been ready at any moment to tell her mother, if her mother caught her and inquired, that she was going to see Miss Chetwynd. And she did go to see Miss Chetwynd, arriving at the house-school, which lay amid trees on the road to Turnhill, just beyond the turnpike, at precisely4 a quarter-past four. As Miss Chetwynd's pupils left at four o'clock, and as Miss Chetwynd invariably took a walk immediately afterwards, Sophia was able to contain her surprise upon being informed that Miss Chetwynd was not in. She had not intended that Miss Chetwynd should be in.
She turned off to the right, up the side road which, starting from the turnpike, led in the direction of Moorthorne and Red Cow, two mining villages. Her heart beat with fear as she began to follow that road, for she was upon a terrific adventure. What most frightened her, perhaps, was her own astounding5 audacity6. She was alarmed by something within herself which seemed to be no part of herself and which produced in her curious, disconcerting, fleeting7 impressions of unreality.
In the morning she had heard the voice of Mr. Scales from the showroom--that voice whose even distant murmur8 caused creepings of the skin in her back. And she had actually stood on the counter in front of the window in order to see down perpendicularly9 into the Square; by so doing she had had a glimpse of the top of his luggage on a barrow, and of the crown of his hat occasionally when he went outside to tempt10 Mr. Povey. She might have gone down into the shop--there was no slightest reason why she should not; three months had elapsed since the name of Mr. Scales had been mentioned, and her mother had evidently forgotten the trifling11 incident of New Year's Day--but she was incapable12 of descending13 the stairs! She went to the head of the stairs and peeped through the balustrade--and she could not get further. For nearly a hundred days those extraordinary lamps had been brightly burning in her head; and now the light-giver had come again, and her feet would not move to the meeting; now the moment had arrived for which alone she had lived, and she could not seize it as it passed! "Why don't I go downstairs?" she asked herself. "Am I afraid to meet him?"
The customer sent up by Constance had occupied the surface of her life for ten minutes, trying on hats; and during this time she was praying wildly that Mr. Scales might not go, and asserting that it was impossible he should go without at least asking for her. Had she not counted the days to this day? When the customer left Sophia followed her downstairs, and saw Mr. Scales chatting with Constance. All her self-possession instantly returned to her, and she joined them with a rather mocking smile. After Mr. Povey's strange summons had withdrawn14 Constance from the corner, Mr. Scales's tone had changed; it had thrilled her. "You are YOU," it had said, "there is you--and there is the rest of the universe!" Then he had not forgotten; she had lived in his heart; she had not for three months been the victim of her own fancies! ... She saw him put a piece of folded white paper on the top edge of the screening box and flick15 it down to her. She blushed scarlet16, staring at it as it lay on the counter. He said nothing, and she could not speak. ... He had prepared that paper, then, beforehand, on the chance of being able to give it to her! This thought was exquisite17 but full of terror. "I must really go," he had said, lamely18, with emotion in his voice, and he had gone--like that! And she put the piece of paper into the pocket of her apron19, and hastened away. She had not even seen, as she turned up the stairs, her mother standing20 by the till--that spot which was the conning- tower of the whole shop. She ran, ran, breathless to the bedroom.
"I am a wicked girl!" she said quite frankly21, on the road to the rendezvous22. "It is a dream that I am going to meet him. It cannot be true. There is time to go back. If I go back I am safe. I have simply called at Miss Chetwynd's and she wasn't in, and no one can say a word. But if I go on--if I'm seen! What a fool I am to go on!"
And she went on, impelled23 by, amongst other things, an immense, naive24 curiosity, and the vanity which the bare fact of his note had excited. The Loop railway was being constructed at that period, and hundreds of navvies were at work on it between Bursley and Turnhill. When she came to the new bridge over the cutting, he was there, as he had written that he would be.
They were very nervous, they greeted each other stiffly and as though they had met then for the first time that day. Nothing was said about his note, nor about her response to it. Her presence was treated by both of them as a basic fact of the situation which it would be well not to disturb by comment. Sophia could not hide her shame, but her shame only aggravated26 the stinging charm of her beauty. She was wearing a hard Amazonian hat, with a lifted veil, the final word of fashion that spring in the Five Towns; her face, beaten by the fresh breeze, shone rosily27; her eyes glittered under the dark hat, and the violent colours of her Victorian frock-- green and crimson--could not spoil those cheeks. If she looked earthwards, frowning, she was the more adorable so. He had come down the clayey incline from the unfinished red bridge to welcome her, and when the salutations were over they stood still, he gazing apparently28 at the horizon and she at the yellow marl round the edges of his boots. The encounter was as far away from Sophia's ideal conception as Manchester from Venice.
"So this is the new railway!" said she.
"Yes," said he. "This is your new railway. You can see it better from the bridge."
"But it's very sludgy up there," she objected with a pout29.
"Further on it's quite dry," he reassured30 her.
From the bridge they had a sudden view of a raw gash31 in the earth; and hundreds of men were crawling about in it, busy with minute operations, like flies in a great wound. There was a continuous rattle32 of picks, resembling a muffled33 shower of hail, and in the distance a tiny locomotive was leading a procession of tiny waggons34.
"And those are the navvies!" she murmured.
The unspeakable doings of the navvies in the Five Towns had reached even her: how they drank and swore all day on Sundays, how their huts and houses were dens35 of the most appalling36 infamy37, how they were the curse of a God-fearing and respectable district! She and Gerald Scales glanced down at these dangerous beasts of prey38 in their yellow corduroys and their open shirts revealing hairy chests. No doubt they both thought how inconvenient39 it was that railways could not be brought into existence without the aid of such revolting and swinish animals. They glanced down from the height of their nice decorum and felt the powerful attraction of similar superior manners. The manners of the navvies were such that Sophia could not even regard them, nor Gerald Scales permit her to regard them, without blushing.
In a united blush they turned away, up the gradual slope. Sophia knew no longer what she was doing. For some minutes she was as helpless as though she had been in a balloon with him.
"I got my work done early," he said; and added complacently40, "As a matter of fact I've had a pretty good day."
She was reassured to learn that he was not neglecting his duties. To be philandering41 with a commercial traveller who has finished a good day's work seemed less shocking than dalliance with a neglecter of business; it seemed indeed, by comparison, respectable.
"It must be very interesting," she said primly42.
"What, my trade?"
"Yes. Always seeing new places and so on."
"In a way it is," he admitted judicially43. "But I can tell you it was much more agreeable being in Paris."
"Oh! Have you been to Paris?"
"Lived there for nearly two years," he said carelessly. Then, looking at her, "Didn't you notice I never came for a long time?"
"I didn't know you were in Paris," she evaded44 him.
"I went to start a sort of agency for Birkinshaws," he said.
"I suppose you talk French like anything."
"Of course one has to talk French," said he. "I learnt French when I was a child from a governess--my uncle made me--but I forgot most of it at school, and at the Varsity you never learn anything- -precious little, anyhow! Certainly not French!"
She was deeply impressed. He was a much greater personage than she had guessed. It had never occurred to her that commercial travellers had to go to a university to finish their complex education. And then, Paris! Paris meant absolutely nothing to her but pure, impossible, unattainable romance. And he had been there! The clouds of glory were around him. He was a hero, dazzling. He had come to her out of another world. He was her miracle. He was almost too miraculous45 to be true.
She, living her humdrum46 life at the shop! And he, elegant, brilliant, coming from far cities! They together, side by side, strolling up the road towards the Moorthorne ridge25! There was nothing quite like this in the stories of Miss Sewell.
"Your uncle ...?" she questioned vaguely47.
"Yes, Mr. Boldero. He's a partner in Birkinshaws."
"Oh!"
"You've heard of him? He's a great Wesleyan."
"Oh yes," she said. "When we had the Wesleyan Conference here, he- -"
"He's always very great at Conferences," said Gerald Scales.
"I didn't know he had anything to do with Birkinshaws."
"He isn't a working partner of course," Mr. Scales explained. "But he means me to be one. I have to learn the business from the bottom. So now you understand why I'm a traveller."
"I see," she said, still more deeply impressed.
"I'm an orphan," said Gerald. "And Uncle Boldero took me in hand when I was three."
"I SEE!" she repeated.
It seemed strange to her that Mr. Scales should be a Wesleyan-- just like herself. She would have been sure that he was 'Church.' Her notions of Wesleyanism, with her notions of various other things, were sharply modified.
"Now tell me about you," Mr. Scales suggested.
"Oh! I'm nothing!" she burst out.
The exclamation48 was perfectly49 sincere. Mr. Scales's disclosures concerning himself, while they excited her, discouraged her.
"You're the finest girl I've ever met, anyhow," said Mr. Scales with gallant50 emphasis, and he dug his stick into the soft ground.
She blushed and made no answer.
They walked on in silence, each wondering apprehensively51 what might happen next.
Suddenly Mr. Scales stopped at a dilapidated low brick wall, built in a circle, close to the side of the road.
"I expect that's an old pit-shaft52," said he.
"Yes, I expect it is."
He picked up a rather large stone and approached the wall.
"Be careful!" she enjoined53 him.
"Oh! It's all right," he said lightly. "Let's listen. Come near and listen."
She reluctantly obeyed, and he threw the stone over the dirty ruined wall, the top of which was about level with his hat. For two or three seconds there was no sound. Then a faint reveberation echoed from the depths of the shaft. And on Sophia's brain arose dreadful images of the ghosts of miners wandering for ever in subterranean54 passages, far, far beneath. The noise of the falling stone had awakened55 for her the secret terrors of the earth. She could scarcely even look at the wall without a spasm56 of fear.
"How strange," said Mr. Scales, a little awe57 in his voice, too, "that that should be left there like that! I suppose it's very deep."
"Some of them are," she trembled.
"I must just have a look," he said, and put his hands on the top of the wall.
"Come away!" she cried.
"Oh! It's all right!" he said again, soothingly58. "The wall's as firm as a rock." And he took a slight spring and looked over.
She shrieked59 loudly. She saw him at the distant bottom of the shaft, mangled60, drowning. The ground seemed to quake under her feet. A horrible sickness seized her. And she shrieked again. Never had she guessed that existence could be such pain.
He slid down from the wall, and turned to her. "No bottom to be seen!" he said. Then, observing her transformed face, he came close to her, with a superior masculine smile. "Silly little thing!" he said coaxingly61, endearingly, putting forth all his power to charm.
He perceived at once that he had miscalculated the effects of his action. Her alarm changed swiftly to angry offence. She drew back with a haughty62 gesture, as if he had intended actually to touch her. Did he suppose, because she chanced to be walking with him, that he had the right to address her familiarly, to tease her, to call her 'silly little thing' and to put his face against hers? She resented his freedom with quick and passionate63 indignation.
She showed him her proud back and nodding head and wrathful skirts; and hurried off without a word, almost running. As for him, he was so startled by unexpected phenomena64 that he did nothing for a moment--merely stood looking and feeling foolish.
Then she heard him in pursuit. She was too proud to stop or even to reduce her speed.
"I didn't mean to--" he muttered behind her.
No recognition from her.
"I suppose I ought to apologize," he said.
"I should just think you ought," she answered, furious.
"Well, I do!" said he. "Do stop a minute."
"I'll thank you not to follow me, Mr. Scales." She paused, and scorched65 him with her displeasure. Then she went forward. And her heart was in torture because it could not persuade her to remain with him, and smile and forgive, and win his smile.
"I shall write to you," he shouted down the slope.
She kept on, the ridiculous child. But the agony she had suffered as he clung to the frail66 wall was not ridiculous, nor her dark vision of the mine, nor her tremendous indignation when, after disobeying her, he forgot that she was a queen. To her the scene was sublimely67 tragic68. Soon she had recrossed the bridge, but not the same she! So this was the end of the incredible adventure!
When she reached the turnpike she thought of her mother and of Constance. She had completely forgotten them; for a space they had utterly69 ceased to exist for her.
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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hoop
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| n.（篮球）篮圈，篮 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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perpendicularly
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| adv. 垂直地, 笔直地, 纵向地 | |
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tempt
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| vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣 | |
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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flick
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| 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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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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lamely
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| 一瘸一拐地，不完全地 | |
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apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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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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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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naive
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| adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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aggravated
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| 使恶化( aggravate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使更严重； 激怒； 使恼火 | |
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rosily
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| adv.带玫瑰色地，乐观地 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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pout
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| v.撅嘴；绷脸；n.撅嘴；生气，不高兴 | |
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reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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gash
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| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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waggons
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| 四轮的运货马车( waggon的名词复数 )； 铁路货车； 小手推车 | |
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dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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infamy
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| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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inconvenient
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| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
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complacently
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| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
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philandering
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| v.调戏，玩弄女性( philander的现在分词 ) | |
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primly
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| adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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judicially
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| 依法判决地，公平地 | |
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evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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humdrum
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| adj.单调的，乏味的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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apprehensively
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| adv.担心地 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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enjoined
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| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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subterranean
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| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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coaxingly
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| adv. 以巧言诱哄，以甘言哄骗 | |
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haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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phenomena
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scorched
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| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶； 枯焦 | |
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frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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sublimely
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| 高尚地，卓越地 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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