Our young lady's spirit was strangely divided; she had a tenderness for Owen which she deeply concealed16, yet it left her occasion to marvel17 at the way a man was made who could care in any relation for a creature like Mona Brigstock when he had known in any relation a creature like Adela Gereth. With such a mother to give him the pitch, how could he take it so low? She wondered that she didn't despise him for this, but there was something that kept her from it. If there had been nothing else it would have sufficed that she really found herself from this moment the medium of communication with him.
"He'll come back to assert himself," Mrs. Gereth had said; and the following week Owen in fact reappeared. He might merely have written, Fleda could see, but he had come in person because it was at once "nicer" for his mother and stronger for his cause. He didn't like the row, though Mona probably did; if he hadn't a sense of beauty he had after all a sense of justice; but it was inevitable18 he should clearly announce at Poynton the date at which he must look to find the house vacant. "You don't think I'm rough or hard, do you?" he asked of Fleda, his impatience19 shining in his idle eyes as the dining-hour shines in club-windows. "The place at Ricks stands there with open arms. And then I give her lots of time. Tell her she can remove everything that belongs to her." Fleda recognized the elements of what the newspapers call a deadlock20 in the circumstance that nothing at Poynton belonged to Mrs. Gereth either more or less than anything else. She must either take everything or nothing, and the girl's suggestion was that it might perhaps be an inspiration to do the latter and begin again on a clean page. What, however, was the poor woman, in that case, to begin with? What was she to do at all, on her meagre income, but make the best of the objets d'art of Ricks, the treasures collected by Mr. Gereth's maiden21 aunt? She had never been near the place: for long years it had been let to strangers, and after that the foreboding that it would be her doom22 had kept her from the abasement23 of it. She had felt that she should see it soon enough, but Fleda (who was careful not to betray to her that Mona had seen it and had been gratified) knew her reasons for believing that the maiden aunt's principles had had much in common with the principles of Waterbath. The only thing, in short, that she would ever have to do with the objets d'art of Ricks would be to turn them out into the road. What belonged to her at Poynton, as Owen said, would conveniently mitigate24 the void resulting from that demonstration25.
The exchange of observations between the friends had grown very direct by the time Fleda asked Mrs. Gereth whether she literally26 meant to shut herself up and stand a siege, or whether it was her idea to expose herself, more informally, to be dragged out of the house by constables27. "Oh, I prefer the constables and the dragging!" the heroine of Poynton had answered. "I want to make Owen and Mona do everything that will be most publicly odious28." She gave it out that it was her one thought now to force them to a line that would dishonor them and dishonor the tradition they embodied29, though Fleda was privately30 sure that she had visions of an alternative policy. The strange thing was that, proud and fastidious all her life, she now showed so little distaste for the world's hearing of the squabble. What had taken place in her above all was that a long resentment31 had ripened32. She hated the effacement33 to which English usage reduced the widowed mother: she had discoursed34 of it passionately35 to Fleda; contrasted it with the beautiful homage36 paid in other countries to women in that position, women no better than herself, whom she had seen acclaimed37 and enthroned, whom she had known and envied; made in short as little as possible a secret of the injury, the bitterness she found in it. The great wrong Owen had done her was not his "taking up" with Mona—that was disgusting, but it was a detail, an accidental form: it was his failure from the first to understand what it was to have a mother at all, to appreciate the beauty and sanctity of the character. She was just his mother as his nose was just his nose, and he had never had the least imagination or tenderness or gallantry about her. One's mother, gracious heaven, if one were the kind of fine young man one ought to be, the only kind Mrs. Gereth cared for, was a subject for poetry, for idolatry. Hadn't she often told Fleda of her friend Madame de Jaume, the wittiest38 of women, but a small, black, crooked39 person, each of whose three boys, when absent, wrote to her every day of their lives? She had the house in Paris, she had the house in Poitou, she had more than in the lifetime of her husband (to whom, in spite of her appearance, she had afforded repeated cause for jealousy), because she had to the end of her days the supreme40 word about everything. It was easy to see that Mrs. Gereth would have given again and again her complexion41, her figure, and even perhaps the spotless virtue42 she had still more successfully retained, to have been the consecrated44 Madame de Jaume. She wasn't, alas45, and this was what she had at present a magnificent occasion to protest against. She was of course fully43 aware of Owen's concession46, his willingness to let her take away with her the few things she liked best; but as yet she only declared that to meet him on this ground would be to give him a triumph, to put him impossibly in the right. "Liked best"? There wasn't a thing in the house that she didn't like best, and what she liked better still was to be left where she was. How could Owen use such an expression without being conscious of his hypocrisy47? Mrs. Gereth, whose criticism was often gay, dilated48 with sardonic49 humor on the happy look a dozen objects from Poynton would wear and the charming effect they would conduce to when interspersed50 with the peculiar51 features of Ricks. What had her whole life been but an effort toward completeness and perfection? Better Waterbath at once, in its cynical52 unity53, than the ignominy of such a mixture!
All this was of no great help to Fleda, in so far as Fleda tried to rise to her mission of finding a way out. When at the end of a fortnight Owen came down once more, it was ostensibly to tackle a farmer whose proceedings54 had been irregular; the girl was sure, however, that he had really come, on the instance of Mona, to see what his mother was doing. He wished to satisfy himself that she was preparing her departure, and he wished to perform a duty, distinct but not less imperative55, in regard to the question of the perquisites56 with which she would retreat. The tension between them was now such that he had to perpetrate these offenses57 without meeting his adversary58. Mrs. Gereth was as willing as himself that he should address to Fleda Vetch whatever cruel remarks he might have to make: she only pitied her poor young friend for repeated encounters with a person as to whom she perfectly59 understood the girl's repulsion. Fleda thought it nice of Owen not to have expected her to write to him; he wouldn't have wished any more than herself that she should have the air of spying on his mother in his interest. What made it comfortable to deal with him in this more familiar way was the sense that she understood so perfectly how poor Mrs. Gereth suffered, and that she measured so adequately the sacrifice the other side did take rather monstrously60 for granted. She understood equally how Owen himself suffered, now that Mona had already begun to make him do things he didn't like. Vividly61 Fleda apprehended62 how she would have first made him like anything she would have made him do; anything even as disagreeable as this appearing there to state, virtually on Mona's behalf, that of course there must be a definite limit to the number of articles appropriated. She took a longish stroll with him in order to talk the matter over; to say if she didn't think a dozen pieces, chosen absolutely at will, would be a handsome allowance; and above all to consider the very delicate question of whether the advantage enjoyed by Mrs. Gereth mightn't be left to her honor. To leave it so was what Owen wished; but there was plainly a young lady at Waterbath to whom, on his side, he already had to render an account. He was as touching63 in his offhand64 annoyance65 as his mother was tragic in her intensity66; for if he couldn't help having a sense of propriety67 about the whole matter, so he could as little help hating it. It was for his hating it, Fleda reasoned, that she liked him so, and her insistence68 to his mother on the hatred69 perilously70 resembled, on one or two occasions, a revelation of the liking71. There were moments when, in conscience, that revelation pressed her; inasmuch as it was just on the ground of her not liking him that Mrs. Gereth trusted her so much. Mrs. Gereth herself didn't in these days like him at all, and she was of course and always on Mrs. Gereth's side. He ended really, while the preparations for his marriage went on, by quite a little custom of coming and going; but on no one of these occasions would his mother receive him. He talked only with Fleda and strolled with Fleda; and when he asked her, in regard to the great matter, if Mrs. Gereth were really doing nothing, the girl usually replied: "She pretends not to be, if I may say so; but I think she's really thinking over what she'll take." When her friend asked her what Owen was doing, she could have but one answer: "He's waiting, dear lady, to see what you do!"
Mrs. Gereth, a month after she had received her great shock, did something abrupt72 and extraordinary: she caught up her companion and went to have a look at Ricks. They had come to London first and taken a train from Liverpool Street, and the least of the sufferings they were armed against was that of passing the night. Fleda's admirable dressing-bag had been given her by her friend. "Why, it's charming!" she exclaimed a few hours later, turning back again into the small prim73 parlor74 from a friendly advance to the single plate of the window. Mrs. Gereth hated such windows, the one flat glass, sliding up and down, especially when they enjoyed a view of four iron pots on pedestals, painted white and containing ugly geraniums, ranged on the edge of a gravel-path and doing their best to give it the air of a terrace. Fleda had instantly averted75 her eyes from these ornaments76, but Mrs. Gereth grimly gazed, wondering of course how a place in the deepest depths of Essex and three miles from a small station could contrive77 to look so suburban78. The room was practically a shallow box, with the junction79 of the walls and ceiling guiltless of curve or cornice and marked merely by the little band of crimson80 paper glued round the top of the other paper, a turbid81 gray sprigged with silver flowers. This decoration was rather new and quite fresh; and there was in the centre of the ceiling a big square beam papered over in white, as to which Fleda hesitated about venturing to remark that it was rather picturesque82. She recognized in time that this remark would be weak and that, throughout, she should be able to say nothing either for the mantelpieces or for the doors, of which she saw her companion become sensible with a soundless moan. On the subject of doors especially Mrs. Gereth had the finest views: the thing in the world she most despised was the meanness of the single flap. From end to end, at Poynton, there were high double leaves. At Ricks the entrances to the rooms were like the holes of rabbit-hutches.
It was all, none the less, not so bad as Fleda had feared; it was faded and melancholy83, whereas there had been a danger that it would be contradictious and positive, cheerful and loud. The house was crowded with objects of which the aggregation84 somehow made a thinness and the futility85 a grace; things that told her they had been gathered as slowly and as lovingly as the golden flowers of Poynton. She too, for a home, could have lived with them: they made her fond of the old maiden-aunt; they made her even wonder if it didn't work more for happiness not to have tasted, as she herself had done, of knowledge. Without resources, without a stick, as she said, of her own, Fleda was moved, after all, to some secret surprise at the pretensions86 of a shipwrecked woman who could hold such an asylum87 cheap. The more she looked about the surer she felt of the character of the maiden-aunt, the sense of whose dim presence urged her to pacification88: the maiden-aunt had been a dear; she would have adored the maiden-aunt. The poor lady had had some tender little story; she had been sensitive and ignorant and exquisite89: that too was a sort of origin, a sort of atmosphere for relics90 and rarities, though different from the sorts most prized at Poynton. Mrs. Gereth had of course more than once said that one of the deepest mysteries of life was the way that, by certain natures, hideous91 objects could be loved; but it wasn't a question of love, now, for these: it was only a question of a certain practical patience. Perhaps some thought of that kind had stolen over Mrs. Gereth when, at the end of a brooding hour, she exclaimed, taking in the house with a strenuous92 sigh: "Well, something can be done with it!" Fleda had repeated to her more than once the indulgent fancy about the maiden-aunt—she was so sure she had deeply suffered. "I'm sure I hope she did!" was, however, all that Mrs. Gereth had replied.
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1
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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rigor
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| n.严酷，严格，严厉 | |
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consummately
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| adv.完成地，至上地 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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flinch
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| v.畏缩，退缩 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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fanaticism
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| n.狂热，盲信 | |
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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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reigning
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| adj.统治的，起支配作用的 | |
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usurper
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| n. 篡夺者, 僭取者 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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18
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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deadlock
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| n.僵局，僵持 | |
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maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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abasement
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| n.滥用 | |
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mitigate
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| vt.（使）减轻，（使）缓和 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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constables
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| n.警察( constable的名词复数 ) | |
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odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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32
ripened
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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effacement
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| n.抹消，抹杀 | |
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discoursed
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| 演说（discourse的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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acclaimed
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| adj.受人欢迎的 | |
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wittiest
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| 机智的，言辞巧妙的，情趣横生的( witty的最高级 ) | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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43
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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44
consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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45
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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46
concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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47
hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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48
dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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50
interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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51
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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52
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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53
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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54
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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55
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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56
perquisites
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| n.（工资以外的）财务补贴( perquisite的名词复数 )；额外收入；（随职位而得到的）好处；利益 | |
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57
offenses
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| n.进攻( offense的名词复数 )；（球队的）前锋；进攻方法；攻势 | |
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58
adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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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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monstrously
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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62
apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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67
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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perilously
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| adv.充满危险地，危机四伏地 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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72
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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prim
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| 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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74
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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76
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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turbid
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| adj.混浊的，泥水的，浓的 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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aggregation
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| n.聚合，组合；凝聚 | |
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futility
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| n.无用 | |
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pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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pacification
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| n. 讲和，绥靖，平定 | |
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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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relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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