章节正文
see Jack genially polite to Trix Queenborough, but quite
indifferent to her presence or absence, and content to allow
her to take Newhaven for her partner at tennis as often as she
pleased. He himself was often an absentee from our games. Mrs.
Wentworth did not play, and Jack would sit under the trees with
her, or take her out in the canoe. What Trix thought I did not
know, but it is a fact that she treated poor Newhaven like dirt
beneath her feet, and that Lady Queenborough's face began to lose
its transiently pleasant expression. I had a vague idea that a
retribution was working itself out, and disposed myself to see
the process with all the complacency induced by the spectacle of
others receiving punishment for their sins.
A little scene which occurred after lunch one day was
significant. I was sitting on the terrace, ready booted and
breeched, waiting for my horse to be brought round. Trix came
out and sat down by me.
"Where's Newhaven?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't always want Lord Newhaven!" she exclaimed
petulantly. "I sent him off for a walk--I'm going out in the
Canadian canoe with Mr. Ives."
"Oh, you are, are you?" said I, smiling. As I spoke, Jack Ives
ran up to us.
"I say, Miss Queenborough," he cried, "I've just got your message
saying you'd let me take you on the lake."
"Is it a great bore?" asked Trix, with a glance--a glance that
meant mischief.
"I should like it awfully, of course," said Jack; "but the fact
is I've promised to take Mrs. Wentworth--before I got your
message, you know."
Trix drew herself up.
"Of course, if Mrs. Wentworth----" she began.
"I'm very sorry," said Jack.
Then Miss Queenborough, forgetting--as I hope--or choosing to
disregard my presence, leaned forward and asked, in her most
coaxing tones:
"Don't you ever forget a promise, Mr. Ives?"
Jack looked at her. I suppose her dainty prettiness struck him
afresh, for he wavered and hesitated.
"She's gone upstairs," pursued the tempter, "and we shall be safe
away before she comes down again."
Jack shuffled with one foot on the gravel.
"I tell you what," he said; "I'll ask her if she minds me taking
you for a little while before I----"
I believe he really thought that he had hit upon a compromise
satisfactory to all parties. If so, he was speedily undeceived.
Trix flushed red and answered angrily:
"Pray don't trouble. I don't want to go."
"Perhaps afterward you might," suggested the curate, but now
rather timidly.
"I'm going out with Lord Newhaven," said she. And she added, in
an access of uncontrollable annoyance. "Go, please go. I--I
don't want you."
Jack sheered off, with a look of puzzled shamefacedness. He
disappeared into the house. Nothing passed between Miss
Trix and myself. A moment later Newhaven came out.
"Why, Miss Queenborough," said he, in apparent surprise, "Ives is
going with Mrs. Wentworth in the canoe!"
In an instant I saw what she had done. In rash presumption she
had told Newhaven that she was going with the curate--and now the
curate had refused to take her--and Ives had met him in search of
Mrs. Wentworth. What could she do? Well, she rose--or fell--to
the occasion. In the coldest of voices she said;
"I thought you'd gone for your walk."
"I was just starting," he answered apologetically, "when I met
Ives. But, as you weren't going with him----" He paused, an
inquiring look in his eyes. He was evidently asking himself why
she had not gone with the curate.
"I'd rather be left alone, if you don't mind," said she. And
then, flushing red again, she added. "I changed my mind and
refused to go with Mr. Ives. So he went off to get Mrs.
Wentworth instead."
I started. Newhaven looked at her for an instant, and then
turned on his heel. She turned to me, quick as lightning, and
with her face all aflame.
"If you tell, I'll never speak to you again," she whispered.
After this there was silence for some minutes.
"Well?" she said, without looking at me.
"I have no remark to offer, Miss Queenborough," I returned.
"I suppose that was a lie, wasn't it?" she asked defiantly.
"It's not my business to say what it was," was my discreet
answer.
"I know what you're thinking."
"I was thinking," said I, "which I would rather be--the man you
will marry, or the man you would like----"
"How dare you! It's not true. Oh Mr. Wynne, indeed it's not
true!"
Whether it were true or not I did not know. But if it had
been, Miss Trix Queenborough might have been expected to act very
much in the way in which she proceeded to act: that is to say, to
be extravagantly attentive to Lord Newhaven when Jack Ives was
present, and markedly neglectful of him in the curate's absence.
It also fitted in very well with the theory which I had ventured
to hint that her bearing toward Mrs. Wentworth was distinguished
by a statelycivility, and her remarks about that lady by a
superfluity of laudation; for if these be not two distinguishing
marks of rivalry in the well-bred, I must go back to my favorite
books and learn from them--more folly. And if Trix's manners
were all that they should be, praise no less high must be
accorded to Mrs. Wentworth's; she attained an altitude of
admirable unconsciousness and conducted her flirtation (the
poverty of language forces me to the word, but it is over-
flippant) with the curate in a staid, quasi-maternal way. She
called him a delightful boy, and said that she was intensely
interested in all his aims and hopes.
"What does she want?" I asked Dora despairingly. "She can't want
to marry him." I was referring to Trix Queenborough, not to Mrs.
Wentworth.
"Good gracious, no!" answered Dora, irritably. "It's simple
jealousy. She won't let the poor boy alone till he's in love
with her again. It's a horrible shame!"
"Oh, well, he has great recuperative power," said I.
"She'd better be careful, though. It's a very dangerous game.
How do you suppose Lord Newhaven likes it?"
Accident gave me that very day a hint how little Lord Newhaven
liked it, and a glimpse of the risk Miss Trix was running.
Entering the library suddenly, I heard Newhaven's voice raised
above his ordinary tones.
"I won't stand it!" he was declaring. "I never know how she'll
treat me from one minute to the next."
My entrance, of course, stopped the conversation very
abruptly. Newhaven had come to a stand in the middle of the
room, and Lady Queenborough sat on the sofa, a formidable frown
on her brow. Withdrawing myself as rapidly as possible, I argued
the probability of a severe lecture for Miss Trix, ending in a
command to try her noble suitor's patience no longer. I hope all
this happened, for I, not seeing why Mrs. Wentworth should
monopolize the grace of sympathy, took the liberty of extending
mine to Newhaven. He was certainly in love with Trix, not with
her money, and the treatment he underwent must have been as
trying to his feelings as it was galling to his pride.
My sympathy was not premature, for Miss Trix's fascinations,
which were indubitably great, began to have their effect. The
scene about the canoe was re-enacted, but with a different
denouement. This time the promise was forgotten, and the
widow forsaken. Then Mrs. Wentworth put on her armor. We had,
in fact, reached this very absurd situation, that these two
ladies were contending for the favors of, or the domination
over, such an obscure, poverty-stricken, hopelessly ineligible
person as the curate of Poltons undoubtedly was. The position
seemed to me then, and still seems, to indicate some remarkable
qualities in that young man.
At last Newhaven made a move. At breakfast, on Wednesday
morning, he announced that, reluctant as he should be to leave
Poltons Park, he was due at his aunt's place, in Kent, on
Saturday evening, and must, therefore, make his arrangements to
leave by noon on that day. The significance was apparent. Had
he come down to breakfast with "Now or Never!" stamped in fiery
letters across his brow, it would have been more obtrusive,
indeed, but not a whit plainer. We all looked down at our
plates, except Jack Ives. He flung one glance (I saw it out of
the corner of my left eye) at Newhaven, another at Trix; then he
remarked kindly:
"We shall be uncommonly sorry to lose you, Newhaven."
Events began to happen now, and I will tell them as well as I am
able, supplementing my own knowledge by what I learned afterward
from Dora--she having learned it from the actors in the scene.
In spite of the solemnwarning conveyed in Newhaven's intimation,
Trix, greatly daring, went off immediately after lunch for what
she described as "a long ramble" with Mr. Ives. There was,
indeed, the excuse of an old woman at the end of the ramble, and
Trix provided Jack with a small basket of comforts for the useful
old body; but the ramble was, we felt, the thing, and I was much
annoyed at not being able to accompany the walkers in the cloak
of darkness or other invisiblecontrivance. The ramble consumed
three hours--full measure. Indeed, it was half-past six before
Trix, alone, walked up the drive. Newhaven, a solitary figure,
paced up and down the terrace fronting the drive. Trix came on,
her head thrown back and a steady smile on her lips. She saw
Newhaven; he stood looking at her for a moment with what she
afterward described as an indescribable smile on his face, but
not, as Dora understood from her, by any means a pleasant one.
Yet, if not pleasant, there is not the least doubt in the world
that it was highly significant, for she cried out nervously:
"Why are you looking at me like that? What's the matter?"
Newhaven, still saying nothing, turned his back on her, and made
as if he would walk into the house and leave her there, ignored,
discarded, done with. She, realizing the crisis which had come,
forgetting everything except the imminent danger of losing him
once for all, without time for long explanation or any round-
about seductions, ran forward, laying her hand on his arm and
blurting out:
"But I've refused him."
I do not know what Newhaven thinks now, but I sometimes doubt
whether he would not have been wiser to shake off the detaining
hand, and pursue his lonely way, first into the house, and
ultimately to his aunt's. But (to say nothing of the twenty
thousand a year, which, after all, and be you as romantic as you
may please to be, is not a thing to be sneezed at) Trix's face,
its mingled eagerness and shame, its flushed cheeks and shining
eyes, the piquancy of its unwonted humility, overcame him. He
stopped dead.
"I--I was obliged to give him an--an opportunity," said Miss
Trix, having the grace to stumble a little in her speech. "And--
and it's all your fault."
The war was thus, by happy audacity, carried into Newhaven's own
quarters.
"My fault!" he exclaimed. "My fault that you walk all day with
that curate!"
Then Miss Trix--and let no irrelevant considerations mar the
appreciation of fine acting--dropped her eyes and murmured
softly:
indifferent to her presence or absence, and content to allow
her to take Newhaven for her partner at tennis as often as she
pleased. He himself was often an absentee from our games. Mrs.
Wentworth did not play, and Jack would sit under the trees with
her, or take her out in the canoe. What Trix thought I did not
know, but it is a fact that she treated poor Newhaven like dirt
beneath her feet, and that Lady Queenborough's face began to lose
its transiently pleasant expression. I had a vague idea that a
retribution was working itself out, and disposed myself to see
the process with all the complacency induced by the spectacle of
others receiving punishment for their sins.
A little scene which occurred after lunch one day was
significant. I was sitting on the terrace, ready booted and
breeched, waiting for my horse to be brought round. Trix came
out and sat down by me.
"Where's Newhaven?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't always want Lord Newhaven!" she exclaimed
petulantly. "I sent him off for a walk--I'm going out in the
Canadian canoe with Mr. Ives."
"Oh, you are, are you?" said I, smiling. As I spoke, Jack Ives
ran up to us.
"I say, Miss Queenborough," he cried, "I've just got your message
saying you'd let me take you on the lake."
"Is it a great bore?" asked Trix, with a glance--a glance that
meant mischief.
"I should like it awfully, of course," said Jack; "but the fact
is I've promised to take Mrs. Wentworth--before I got your
message, you know."
Trix drew herself up.
"Of course, if Mrs. Wentworth----" she began.
"I'm very sorry," said Jack.
Then Miss Queenborough, forgetting--as I hope--or choosing to
disregard my presence, leaned forward and asked, in her most
coaxing tones:
"Don't you ever forget a promise, Mr. Ives?"
Jack looked at her. I suppose her dainty prettiness struck him
afresh, for he wavered and hesitated.
"She's gone upstairs," pursued the tempter, "and we shall be safe
away before she comes down again."
Jack shuffled with one foot on the gravel.
"I tell you what," he said; "I'll ask her if she minds me taking
you for a little while before I----"
I believe he really thought that he had hit upon a compromise
satisfactory to all parties. If so, he was speedily undeceived.
Trix flushed red and answered angrily:
"Pray don't trouble. I don't want to go."
"Perhaps afterward you might," suggested the curate, but now
rather timidly.
"I'm going out with Lord Newhaven," said she. And she added, in
an access of uncontrollable annoyance. "Go, please go. I--I
don't want you."
Jack sheered off, with a look of puzzled shamefacedness. He
disappeared into the house. Nothing passed between Miss
Trix and myself. A moment later Newhaven came out.
"Why, Miss Queenborough," said he, in apparent surprise, "Ives is
going with Mrs. Wentworth in the canoe!"
In an instant I saw what she had done. In rash presumption she
had told Newhaven that she was going with the curate--and now the
curate had refused to take her--and Ives had met him in search of
Mrs. Wentworth. What could she do? Well, she rose--or fell--to
the occasion. In the coldest of voices she said;
"I thought you'd gone for your walk."
"I was just starting," he answered apologetically, "when I met
Ives. But, as you weren't going with him----" He paused, an
inquiring look in his eyes. He was evidently asking himself why
she had not gone with the curate.
"I'd rather be left alone, if you don't mind," said she. And
then, flushing red again, she added. "I changed my mind and
refused to go with Mr. Ives. So he went off to get Mrs.
Wentworth instead."
I started. Newhaven looked at her for an instant, and then
turned on his heel. She turned to me, quick as lightning, and
with her face all aflame.
"If you tell, I'll never speak to you again," she whispered.
After this there was silence for some minutes.
"Well?" she said, without looking at me.
"I have no remark to offer, Miss Queenborough," I returned.
"I suppose that was a lie, wasn't it?" she asked defiantly.
"It's not my business to say what it was," was my discreet
answer.
"I know what you're thinking."
"I was thinking," said I, "which I would rather be--the man you
will marry, or the man you would like----"
"How dare you! It's not true. Oh Mr. Wynne, indeed it's not
true!"
Whether it were true or not I did not know. But if it had
been, Miss Trix Queenborough might have been expected to act very
much in the way in which she proceeded to act: that is to say, to
be extravagantly attentive to Lord Newhaven when Jack Ives was
present, and markedly neglectful of him in the curate's absence.
It also fitted in very well with the theory which I had ventured
to hint that her bearing toward Mrs. Wentworth was distinguished
by a statelycivility, and her remarks about that lady by a
superfluity of laudation; for if these be not two distinguishing
marks of rivalry in the well-bred, I must go back to my favorite
books and learn from them--more folly. And if Trix's manners
were all that they should be, praise no less high must be
accorded to Mrs. Wentworth's; she attained an altitude of
admirable unconsciousness and conducted her flirtation (the
poverty of language forces me to the word, but it is over-
flippant) with the curate in a staid, quasi-maternal way. She
called him a delightful boy, and said that she was intensely
interested in all his aims and hopes.
"What does she want?" I asked Dora despairingly. "She can't want
to marry him." I was referring to Trix Queenborough, not to Mrs.
Wentworth.
"Good gracious, no!" answered Dora, irritably. "It's simple
jealousy. She won't let the poor boy alone till he's in love
with her again. It's a horrible shame!"
"Oh, well, he has great recuperative power," said I.
"She'd better be careful, though. It's a very dangerous game.
How do you suppose Lord Newhaven likes it?"
Accident gave me that very day a hint how little Lord Newhaven
liked it, and a glimpse of the risk Miss Trix was running.
Entering the library suddenly, I heard Newhaven's voice raised
above his ordinary tones.
"I won't stand it!" he was declaring. "I never know how she'll
treat me from one minute to the next."
My entrance, of course, stopped the conversation very
abruptly. Newhaven had come to a stand in the middle of the
room, and Lady Queenborough sat on the sofa, a formidable frown
on her brow. Withdrawing myself as rapidly as possible, I argued
the probability of a severe lecture for Miss Trix, ending in a
command to try her noble suitor's patience no longer. I hope all
this happened, for I, not seeing why Mrs. Wentworth should
monopolize the grace of sympathy, took the liberty of extending
mine to Newhaven. He was certainly in love with Trix, not with
her money, and the treatment he underwent must have been as
trying to his feelings as it was galling to his pride.
My sympathy was not premature, for Miss Trix's fascinations,
which were indubitably great, began to have their effect. The
scene about the canoe was re-enacted, but with a different
denouement. This time the promise was forgotten, and the
widow forsaken. Then Mrs. Wentworth put on her armor. We had,
in fact, reached this very absurd situation, that these two
ladies were contending for the favors of, or the domination
over, such an obscure, poverty-stricken, hopelessly ineligible
person as the curate of Poltons undoubtedly was. The position
seemed to me then, and still seems, to indicate some remarkable
qualities in that young man.
At last Newhaven made a move. At breakfast, on Wednesday
morning, he announced that, reluctant as he should be to leave
Poltons Park, he was due at his aunt's place, in Kent, on
Saturday evening, and must, therefore, make his arrangements to
leave by noon on that day. The significance was apparent. Had
he come down to breakfast with "Now or Never!" stamped in fiery
letters across his brow, it would have been more obtrusive,
indeed, but not a whit plainer. We all looked down at our
plates, except Jack Ives. He flung one glance (I saw it out of
the corner of my left eye) at Newhaven, another at Trix; then he
remarked kindly:
"We shall be uncommonly sorry to lose you, Newhaven."
Events began to happen now, and I will tell them as well as I am
able, supplementing my own knowledge by what I learned afterward
from Dora--she having learned it from the actors in the scene.
In spite of the solemnwarning conveyed in Newhaven's intimation,
Trix, greatly daring, went off immediately after lunch for what
she described as "a long ramble" with Mr. Ives. There was,
indeed, the excuse of an old woman at the end of the ramble, and
Trix provided Jack with a small basket of comforts for the useful
old body; but the ramble was, we felt, the thing, and I was much
annoyed at not being able to accompany the walkers in the cloak
of darkness or other invisiblecontrivance. The ramble consumed
three hours--full measure. Indeed, it was half-past six before
Trix, alone, walked up the drive. Newhaven, a solitary figure,
paced up and down the terrace fronting the drive. Trix came on,
her head thrown back and a steady smile on her lips. She saw
Newhaven; he stood looking at her for a moment with what she
afterward described as an indescribable smile on his face, but
not, as Dora understood from her, by any means a pleasant one.
Yet, if not pleasant, there is not the least doubt in the world
that it was highly significant, for she cried out nervously:
"Why are you looking at me like that? What's the matter?"
Newhaven, still saying nothing, turned his back on her, and made
as if he would walk into the house and leave her there, ignored,
discarded, done with. She, realizing the crisis which had come,
forgetting everything except the imminent danger of losing him
once for all, without time for long explanation or any round-
about seductions, ran forward, laying her hand on his arm and
blurting out:
"But I've refused him."
I do not know what Newhaven thinks now, but I sometimes doubt
whether he would not have been wiser to shake off the detaining
hand, and pursue his lonely way, first into the house, and
ultimately to his aunt's. But (to say nothing of the twenty
thousand a year, which, after all, and be you as romantic as you
may please to be, is not a thing to be sneezed at) Trix's face,
its mingled eagerness and shame, its flushed cheeks and shining
eyes, the piquancy of its unwonted humility, overcame him. He
stopped dead.
"I--I was obliged to give him an--an opportunity," said Miss
Trix, having the grace to stumble a little in her speech. "And--
and it's all your fault."
The war was thus, by happy audacity, carried into Newhaven's own
quarters.
"My fault!" he exclaimed. "My fault that you walk all day with
that curate!"
Then Miss Trix--and let no irrelevant considerations mar the
appreciation of fine acting--dropped her eyes and murmured
softly:
- polite [pə´lait]
a.有礼貌的；温和的 (初中英语单词) - absence [´æbsəns] n.不在，缺席；缺乏 (初中英语单词)
- partner [´pɑ:tnə] n.伙伴 v.同....合作 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- spectacle [´spektəkəl] n.展览；表演；景象 (初中英语单词)
- punishment [´pʌniʃmənt] n.罚，刑罚 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- apparent [ə´pærənt] a.显然的；表面上的 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- evidently [´evidəntli] ad.明显地 (初中英语单词)
- lightning [´laitniŋ] n.闪电 a.突然的 (初中英语单词)
- attentive [ə´tentiv] a.注意的；殷勤的 (初中英语单词)
- altitude [´æltitju:d] n.高度；海拨 (初中英语单词)
- delightful [di´laitful] a.讨人喜欢的 (初中英语单词)
- gracious [´greiʃəs] a.和蔼可亲的；任慈的 (初中英语单词)
- horrible [´hɔrəbəl] a.可怕的；恐怖的 (初中英语单词)
- glimpse [glimps] n.&v.瞥见 (初中英语单词)
- severe [si´viə] a.严厉的；苛刻的 (初中英语单词)
- patience [´peiʃəns] n.忍耐(力)；耐心；坚韧 (初中英语单词)
- sympathy [´simpəθi] n.同情，怜悯 (初中英语单词)
- treatment [´tri:tmənt] n.待遇；对待；治疗 (初中英语单词)
- absurd [əb´sə:d] a.荒谬的，可笑的 (初中英语单词)
- undoubtedly [ʌn´dautidli] ad.无疑地，确实地 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- solemn [´sɔləm] a.严肃的；隆重的 (初中英语单词)
- invisible [in´vizəbəl] a.看不见的；无形的 (初中英语单词)
- measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
- explanation [,eksplə´neiʃən] n.解释；说明；辩解 (初中英语单词)
- pursue [pə´sju:] v.追赶；追踪；从事 (初中英语单词)
- lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
- romantic [rəu´mæntik] a.传奇(式)的；浪漫的 (初中英语单词)
- stumble [´stʌmbəl] v.摔倒；失足；弄错 (初中英语单词)
- tennis [´tenis] n.网球(运动) (高中英语单词)
- terrace [´terəs] n.梯田 vt.使成梯田 (高中英语单词)
- awfully [´ɔ:fuli] ad.令人畏惧地 (高中英语单词)
- dainty [´deinti] a.秀丽的 n.美味 (高中英语单词)
- access [´ækses] n.接近；通路；进入 (高中英语单词)
- presumption [pri´zʌmpʃən] n.推测；专横；冒昧 (高中英语单词)
- bearing [´beəriŋ] n.举止；忍耐；关系 (高中英语单词)
- stately [´steitli] a.庄严的，雄伟的 (高中英语单词)
- formidable [´fɔ:midəbəl] a.可怕的；艰难的 (高中英语单词)
- probability [,prɔbə´biliti] n.或有；可能性 (高中英语单词)
- ending [´endiŋ] n.结尾，结局 (高中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- significance [sig´nifikəns] n.意义；重要性 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- solitary [´sɔlitəri] a.独居的；孤独的 (高中英语单词)
- significant [sig´nifikənt] a.重要的；意义重大的 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- crisis [´kraisis] n.转折点；危机 (高中英语单词)
- eagerness [´i:gənis] n.渴望；热忱 (高中英语单词)
- speedily [´spi:dili] ad.迅速地 (英语四级单词)
- annoyance [ə´nɔiəns] n.烦恼事(人) (英语四级单词)
- civility [si´viliti] n.礼貌；礼仪 (英语四级单词)
- hopelessly [´həuplisli] ad.无希望地，绝望地 (英语四级单词)
- reluctant [ri´lʌktənt] a.勉强的；难得到的 (英语四级单词)
- warning [´wɔ:niŋ] n.警告；前兆 a.预告的 (英语四级单词)
- daring [´deəriŋ] a.&n.勇敢(的) (英语四级单词)
- ramble [´ræmbl] v.&n.闲逛；漫步 (英语四级单词)
- contrivance [kən´traivəns] n.发明，设计(的才能) (英语四级单词)
- humility [hju:´militi] n.谦逊，谦让 (英语四级单词)
- overcame [,əuvə´keim] overcome的过去式 (英语四级单词)
- audacity [ɔ:´dæsiti] n.大胆；卤莽；无礼 (英语四级单词)
- rivalry [´raivəlri] n.竞争；竞赛；敌对 (英语六级单词)
- forsaken [fə´seik] forsake的过去分词 (英语六级单词)
- indescribable [,indis´kraibəbəl] a.难以形容的 (英语六级单词)
- imminent [´iminənt] a.临头的，逼近的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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