So into Gayfield Mill the girl walked, and found a place immediately among the unskilled. And her career appeared to be predetermined now, and her destiny a simple one—to work, to share the toil1 and the gaieties of Gayfield with the majority of the other girls she knew; to marry, ultimately, some boy, some clerk in one of the Gayfield stores, some farmer lad, perhaps, possibly a school teacher or a local lawyer or physician, or possibly the head of some department in the mill, or maybe a minister—she was sufficiently2 well bred and educated for any one of these.
The winter of her seventeenth year found her still very much a child at heart, physically3 backward, a late adolescent, a little shy, inclined to silences, romantic, sensitive to all beauty, and passionately4 expressing herself only when curled up by the stove with her pencil and the red light of the coals falling athwart the slim hand that guided it.
She went sometimes to village parties, learned very easily to dance, had no preferences among the youths 39of Gayfield, no romances. For that matter, while she was liked and even furtively5 admired, her slight shyness, reticence6, and a vague, indefinite something about her seemed to discourage familiar rustic7 gallantry. Also, she was as thin and awkward as an overgrown lad, not thought to be pretty, known to be poor. But for all that more than one young man was vaguely8 haunted at intervals9 by some memory of her grey eyes and the peculiar10 sweetness of her mouth, forgetting for the moment several freckles11 on the delicate bridge of her nose and several more on her sun-tanned cheeks.
She had an agreeable time that winter, enchanted12 to learn dancing, happy at “showers” and parties, at sleigh rides and “chicken suppers,” and the various species of village gaiety which ranged from moving pictures every Thursday and Saturday nights to church entertainments, amateur theatricals13 at the town hall, and lectures under the auspices14 of the aristocratic D. O. F.—Daughters of the Old Frontier.
But she never saw any boy she preferred to any other, never was conscious of being preferred, excepting once—and she was not quite certain about that.
It was old Dick Neeland’s son, Jim—vaguely understood to have been for several years in Paris studying art—and who now turned up in Gayfield during Christmas week.
Ruhannah remembered seeing him on several occasions when she was a little child. He was usually tramping across country with his sturdy father, Dick Neeland of Neeland’s Mills—an odd, picturesque15 pair with their setter dogs and burnished16 guns, and old Dick’s face as red as a wrinkled winter apple, and his hair snow-white.
There was six years’ difference between their ages, 40Jim Neeland’s and hers, and she had always considered him a grown and formidable man in those days. But that winter, when somebody at the movies pointed17 him out to her, she was surprised to find him no older than the other youths she skated with and danced with.
Afterward18, at a noisy village party, she saw him dancing with every girl in town, and the drop of Irish blood in this handsome, careless young fellow established him at once as a fascinating favourite.
Rue19 became quite tremulous over the prospect20 of dancing with him. Presently her turn came; she rose with a sudden odd loss of self-possession as he was presented, stood dumb, shy, unresponsive, suffered him to lead her out, became slowly conscious that he danced rather badly. But awe21 of him persisted even when he trod on her slender foot.
He brought her an ice afterward, and seated himself beside her.
She flushed and would have found a pleasant word to reassure23 him, but discovered nothing to say, it being perfectly24 patent to them both that she had retired25 from the floor with a slight limp.
“I’m a steam roller,” he repeated carelessly. “But you dance very well, don’t you?”
“I have only learned to dance this winter.”
“I thought you an expert. Do you live here?”
“Yes.... I mean I live at Brookhollow.”
“Funny. I don’t remember you. Besides, I don’t know your name—people mumble26 so when they introduce a man.”
“I’m Ruhannah Carew.”
“Carew,” he repeated, while a crease27 came between 41his eyebrows28. “Of Brookhollow–– Oh, I know! Your father is the retired missionary—red house facing the bridge.”
“Yes.”
“Certainly,” he said, taking another look at her; “you’re the little girl daddy and I used to see across the fields when we were shooting woodcock in the willows29.”
“I remember you,” she said.
“I remember you!”
She coloured gratefully.
“Because,” he added, “dad and I were always afraid you’d wander into range and we’d pepper you from the bushes. You’ve grown a lot, haven’t you?” He had a nice, direct smile though his speech and manners were a trifle breezy, confident, and sans façon. But he was at that age—which succeeds the age of bumptiousness—with life and career before him, attainment30, realisation, success, everything the mystery of life holds for a young man who has just flung open the gates and who takes the magic road to the future with a stride instead of his accustomed pace.
He was already a man with a profession, and meant that she should become aware of it.
Later in the evening somebody told her what a personage he had become, and she became even more deeply thrilled, impressed, and tremulously desirous that he should seek her out again, not venturing to seek him, not dreaming of encouraging him to notice her by glance or attitude—not even knowing, as yet, how to do such things. She thought he had already forgotten her existence.
But that this thin, freckled31 young thing with grey 42eyes ought to learn how much of a man he was remained somewhere in the back of Neeland’s head; and when he heard his hostess say that somebody would have to see Rue Carew home, he offered to do it. And presently went over and asked the girl if he might—not too patronisingly.
In the cutter, under fur, with the moonlight electrically brilliant and the world buried in white, she ventured to speak of his art, timidly, as in the presence of the very great.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I studied in Paris. Wish I were back there. But I’ve got to draw for magazines and illustrated32 papers; got to make a living, you see. I teach at the Art League, too.”
“How happy you must be in your career!” she said, devoutly33 meaning it, knowing no better than to say it.
“But—yes—but it is art, too.”
“Oh, art!” he laughed. It was the fashion that year to shrug35 when art was mentioned—reaction from too much gabble.
“We don’t busy ourselves with art; we busy ourselves with business. When they use my stuff I feel I’m getting on. You see,” he admitted with reluctant honesty, “I’m young at it yet—I haven’t had very much of my stuff in magazines yet.”
After a silence, cursed by an instinctive36 truthfulness37 which always spoiled any little plan to swagger:
“I’ve had several—well, about a dozen pictures reproduced.”
One picture accepted by any magazine would have awed38 her sufficiently. The mere39 fact that he was an artist had been enough to impress her.43
“Do you care for that sort of thing—drawing, painting, I mean?” he inquired kindly.
She drew a quick breath, steadied her voice, and said she did.
“Perhaps you may turn out stuff yourself some day.”
She scarcely knew how to take the word “stuff.” Vaguely she surmised40 it to be professional vernacular41.
She admitted shyly that she cared for nothing so much as drawing, that she longed for instruction, but that such a dream was hopeless.
At first he did not comprehend that poverty barred the way to her; he urged her to cultivate her talent, bestowed42 advice concerning the Art League, boarding houses, studios, ways, means, and ends, until she felt obliged to tell him how far beyond her means such magic splendours lay.
He remained silent, sorry for her, thinking also that the chances were against her having any particular talent, consoling a heart that was unusually sympathetic and tender with the conclusion that this girl would be happier here in Brookhollow than scratching around the purlieus of New York to make both ends meet.
“It’s a tough deal,” he remarked abruptly43. “—I mean this art stuff. You work like the dickens and kick your heels in ante-rooms. If they take your stuff they send you back to alter it or redraw it. I don’t know how anybody makes a living at it—in the beginning.”
“Don’t you?”
“I? No.” He reddened; but she could not notice it in the moonlight. “No,” he repeated; “I have an allowance from my father. I’m new at it yet.”
“Couldn’t a man—a girl—support herself by drawing 44pictures for magazines?” she inquired tremulously.
“Oh, well, of course there are some who have arrived—and they manage to get on. Some even make wads, you know.”
“W-wads?” she repeated, mystified.
“I mean a lot of money. There’s that girl on the Star, Jean Throssel, who makes all kinds of wealth, they say, out of her spidery, filmy girls in ringlets and cheesecloth dinner gowns.”
“Oh!”
“Yes, Jean Throssel, and that Waythorne girl, Belinda Waythorne, you know—does all that stuff for The Looking Glass—futurist graft44, no mouths on her people—she makes hers, I understand.”
“Then, of course,” he continued, “men like Alexander Fairless and Philip Lightwood who imitates him, make fortunes out of their drawing. I could name a dozen, perhaps. But the rest—hard sledding, Miss Carew!”
“Is it very hard?”
“Well, I don’t know what on earth I’d do if dad didn’t back me as his fancy.”
“A father ought to, if he can afford it.”
“Oh, I’ll pay my way some day. It’s in me. I feel it; I know it. I’ll make plenty of money,” he assured her confidently.
“I’m sure you will.”
“Thank you,” he smiled. “My friends tell me I’ve got it in me. I have one friend in particular—the Princess Mistchenka—who has all kinds of confidence in my future. When I’m blue she bolsters46 me up. She’s quite wonderful. I owe her a lot for asking me to her Sunday nights and for giving me her friendship.”45
“A—a princess?” whispered the girl, who had drawn47 pictures of thousands but was a little startled to realise that such fabled48 creatures really exist.
“Is she very beautiful?” she added.
“She’s tremendously pretty.”
“Her—clothes are very beautiful, I suppose,” ventured Rue.
“Well—they’re very—smart. Everything about her is smart. Her Sunday night suppers are wonderful. You meet people who do things—all sorts—everybody who is somebody.”
“I think myself very lucky that the Princess Mistchenka should be my friend, because, honestly, Miss Carew, I don’t see what there is in me to interest such a woman.”
Rue thought she could see, but remained silent.
“If I had my way,” said Neeland, a few moments later, “I’d drop illustrating50 and paint battle scenes. But it wouldn’t pay, you see.”
“Couldn’t you support yourself by painting battles?”
“Not yet,” he said honestly. “Of course I have hopes—intentions––” he laughed, drew his reins51; the silvery chimes clashed and jingled52 and flashed in the moonlight; they had arrived.
At the door he said:
“I hope some day you’ll have a chance to take lessons. Thank you for dancing with me.... If you ever do come to New York to study, I hope you’ll let me know.”
“Yes,” she said, “I will.”
He was halfway53 to his sleigh, looked back, saw her looking back as she entered the lighted doorway54.46
“Good night, Rue,” he said impulsively55, warmly sorry for her.
“Good night,” she said.
The drop of Irish blood in him prompted him to go back to where she stood framed in the lighted doorway. And the same drop was no doubt responsible for his taking her by the waist and tilting56 back her head in its fur hood57 and kissing her soft, warm lips.
She looked up at him in a flushed, bewildered sort of way, not resisting; but his eyes were so gay and mischievous58, and his quick smile so engaging that a breathless, uncertain smile began to edge her lips; and it remained stamped there, stiffening59 even after he had jumped into his cutter and had driven away, jingling60 joyously61 out into the dazzling moonshine.
In bed, the window open, and the covers pulled to her chin, Rue lay wakeful, living over again the pleasures of the evening; and Neeland’s face was always before her open eyes, and his pleasant voice seemed to be sounding in her ears. As for the kiss, it did not trouble her. Girls she went with were not infrequently so saluted62 by boys. That, being her own first experience, was important only in that degree. And she shyly thought the experience agreeable. And, as she recalled, revived, and considered all that Neeland had said, it seemed to her that this young man led an enchanted life and that such as he were indeed companions fit for princesses.
“Princess Mistchenka,” she repeated aloud to herself. And somehow it sounded vaguely familiar to the girl, as though somewhere, long ago, she had heard another voice pronounce the name.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
toil
|
|
| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
physically
|
|
| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
passionately
|
|
| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
furtively
|
|
| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
reticence
|
|
| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
rustic
|
|
| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
intervals
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
freckles
|
|
| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
theatricals
|
|
| n.（业余性的）戏剧演出，舞台表演艺术；职业演员；戏剧的( theatrical的名词复数 )；剧场的；炫耀的；戏剧性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
auspices
|
|
| n.资助，赞助 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
picturesque
|
|
| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
burnished
|
|
| adj.抛光的，光亮的v.擦亮（金属等），磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 )；被擦亮，磨光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
afterward
|
|
| adv.后来；以后 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
rue
|
|
| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
prospect
|
|
| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
awe
|
|
| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
spike
|
|
| n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
reassure
|
|
| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
retired
|
|
| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
mumble
|
|
| n./v.喃喃而语，咕哝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
crease
|
|
| n.折缝，褶痕，皱褶；v.(使)起皱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
eyebrows
|
|
| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
willows
|
|
| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
attainment
|
|
| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
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 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
illustrated
|
|
| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
devoutly
|
|
| adv.虔诚地，虔敬地，衷心地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
shrug
|
|
| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
instinctive
|
|
| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
truthfulness
|
|
| n. 符合实际 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
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 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
surmised
|
|
| v.臆测，推断( surmise的过去式和过去分词 )；揣测；猜想 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
vernacular
|
|
| adj.地方的，用地方语写成的；n.白话；行话；本国语；动植物的俗名 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
bestowed
|
|
| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
abruptly
|
|
| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
graft
|
|
| n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
mazes
|
|
| 迷宫( maze的名词复数 )； 纷繁复杂的规则； 复杂难懂的细节； 迷宫图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
bolsters
|
|
| n.长枕( bolster的名词复数 )；垫子；衬垫；支持物v.支持( bolster的第三人称单数 )；支撑；给予必要的支持；援助 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
fabled
|
|
| adj.寓言中的，虚构的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
illustrating
|
|
| 给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
jingled
|
|
| 喝醉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
halfway
|
|
| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
doorway
|
|
| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
impulsively
|
|
| adv.冲动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
tilting
|
|
| 倾斜，倾卸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
hood
|
|
| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
mischievous
|
|
| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
stiffening
|
|
| n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
jingling
|
|
| 叮当声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
joyously
|
|
| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
saluted
|
|
| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |