章节正文
Mrs. Westgate for a moment seemed vexed. "Why not, pray?" she demanded.
"Because I don't care to," said Bessie Alden.
The morning after Lord Lambeth had had, with Percy Beaumont,
that exchange of ideas which has just been narrated, the ladies at
Jones's Hotel received from his lordship a written invitation to pay
their projected visit to Branches Castle on the following Tuesday.
"I think I have made up a very pleasant party," the young nobleman said.
"Several people whom you know, and my mother and sisters, who have
so long been regrettably prevented from making your acquaintance."
Bessie Alden lost no time in calling her sister's attention to
the injustice she had done the Duchess of Bayswater, whose hostility
was now proved to be a vain illusion.
"Wait till you see if she comes," said Mrs. Westgate.
"And if she is to meet us at her son's house the obligation
was all the greater for her to call upon us."
Bessie had not to wait long, and it appeared that Lord Lambeth's mother
now accepted Mrs. Westgate's view of her duties. On the morrow,
early in the afternoon, two cards were brought to the apartment
of the American ladies--one of them bearing the name of the Duchess
of Bayswater and the other that of the Countess of Pimlico.
Mrs. Westgate glanced at the clock. "It is not yet four," she said;
"they have come early; they wish to see us. We will receive them."
And she gave orders that her visitors should be admitted.
A few moments later they were introduced, and there was a solemn
exchange of amenities. The duchess was a large lady, with a fine
fresh color; the Countess of Pimlico was very pretty and elegant.
The duchess looked about her as she sat down--looked not especially
at Mrs. Westgate. "I daresay my son has told you that I have been
wanting to come and see you," she observed.
"You are very kind," said Mrs. Westgate, vaguely--her conscience not
allowing her to assent to this proposition--and, indeed, not permitting
her to enunciate her own with any appreciable emphasis.
"He says you were so kind to him in America," said the duchess.
"We are very glad," Mrs. Westgate replied, "to have been able to make
him a little more--a little less--a little more comfortable."
"I think he stayed at your house," remarked the Duchess of Bayswater,
looking at Bessie Alden.
"A very short time," said Mrs. Westgate.
"Oh!" said the duchess; and she continued to look at Bessie,
who was engaged in conversation with her daughter.
"Do you like London?" Lady Pimlico had asked of Bessie,
after looking at her a good deal--at her face and her hands,
her dress and her hair.
"Very much indeed," said Bessie.
"Do you like this hotel?"
"It is very comfortable," said Bessie.
"Do you like stopping at hotels?" inquired Lady Pimlico after a pause.
"I am very fond of traveling," Bessie answered, "and I suppose
hotels are a necessary part of it. But they are not the part
I am fondest of."
"Oh, I hate traveling," said the Countess of Pimlico and transferred
her attention to Mrs. Westgate.
"My son tells me you are going to Branches," the duchesspresently resumed.
"Lord Lambeth has been so good as to ask us," said Mrs. Westgate,
who perceived that her visitor had now begun to look at her, and who
had her customary happy consciousness of a distinguished appearance.
The only mitigation of her felicity on this point was that,
having inspected her visitor's own costume, she said to herself,
"She won't know how well I am dressed!"
"He has asked me to go, but I am not sure I shall be able,"
murmured the duchess.
"He had offered us the p--prospect of meeting you," said Mrs. Westgate.
"I hate the country at this season," responded the duchess.
Mrs. Westgate gave a little shrug. "I think it is pleasanter than London."
But the duchess's eyes were absent again; she was looking very fixedly
at Bessie. In a moment she slowly rose, walked to a chair that stood
empty at the young girl's right hand, and silently seated herself.
As she was a majestic, voluminous woman, this little transaction had,
inevitably, an air of somewhat impressiveintention. It diffused
a certain awkwardness, which Lady Pimlico, as a sympathetic daughter,
perhaps desired to rectify in turning to Mrs. Westgate.
"I daresay you go out a great deal," she observed.
"No, very little. We are strangers, and we didn't come here for society."
"I see," said Lady Pimlico. "It's rather nice in town just now."
"It's charming," said Mrs. Westgate. "But we only go to see a few people--
whom we like."
"Of course one can't like everyone," said Lady Pimlico.
"It depends upon one's society," Mrs. Westgate rejoined.
The Duchess meanwhile had addressed herself to Bessie.
"My son tells me the young ladies in America are so clever."
"I am glad they made so good an impression on him," said Bessie, smiling.
The Duchess was not smiling; her large fresh face was very tranquil.
"He is very susceptible," she said. "He thinks everyone clever,
and sometimes they are."
"Sometimes," Bessie assented, smiling still.
The duchess looked at her a little and then went on;
"Lambeth is very susceptible, but he is very volatile, too."
"Volatile?" asked Bessie.
"He is very inconstant. It won't do to depend on him."
"Ah," said Bessie, "I don't recognize that description.
We have depended on him greatly--my sister and I--and he has
never disappointed us."
"He will disappoint you yet," said the duchess.
Bessie gave a little laugh, as if she were amused at the
duchess's persistency. "I suppose it will depend on what we
expect of him."
"The less you expect, the better," Lord Lambeth's mother declared.
"Well," said Bessie, "we expect nothing unreasonable."
The duchess for a moment was silent, though she appeared to have more to say.
"Lambeth says he has seen so much of you," she presently began.
"He has been to see us very often; he has been very kind,"
said Bessie Alden.
"I daresay you are used to that. I am told there is a great deal
of that in America."
"A great deal of kindness?" the young girl inquired, smiling.
"Is that what you call it? I know you have different expressions."
"We certainly don't always understand each other," said Mrs. Westgate,
the termination of whose interview with Lady Pimlico allowed her to give
her attention to their elder visitor.
"I am speaking of the young men calling so much upon the young ladies,"
the duchess explained.
"But surely in England," said Mrs. Westgate, "the young ladies don't
call upon the young men?"
"Some of them do--almost!" Lady Pimlico declared.
"What the young men are a great parti."
"Bessie, you must make a note of that," said Mrs. Westgate.
"My sister," she added, "is a model traveler. She writes
down all the curious facts she hears in a little book she
keeps for the purpose."
The duchess was a little flushed; she looked all about the room, while her
daughter turned to Bessie. "My brother told us you were wonderfully clever,"
said Lady Pimlico.
"He should have said my sister," Bessie answered--"when she says
such things as that."
"Shall you be long at Branches?" the duchess asked, abruptly,
of the young girl.
"Lord Lambeth has asked us for three days," said Bessie.
"I shall go," the duchess declared, "and my daughter, too."
"That will be charming!" Bessie rejoined.
"Delightful!" murmured Mrs. Westgate.
"I shall expect to see a great deal of you," the duchess continued.
"When I go to Branches I monopolize my son's guests."
"They must be most happy," said Mrs. Westgate very graciously.
"I want immensely to see it--to see the castle," said Bessie
to the duchess. "I have never seen one--in England, at least;
and you know we have none in America."
"Ah, you are fond of castles?" inquired her Grace.
"Immensely!" replied the young girl. "It has been the dream
of my life to live in one."
The duchess looked at her a moment, as if she hardly knew
how to take this assurance, which, from her Grace's point
of view, was either very artless or very audacious.
"Well," she said, rising, "I will show you Branches myself."
And upon this the two great ladies took their departure.
"What did they mean by it?" asked Mrs. Westgate, when they were gone.
"They meant to be polite," said Bessie, "because we are going
to meet them."
"It is too late to be polite," Mrs. Westgate replied almost grimly.
"They meant to overawe us by their fine manners and their grandeur,
and to make you lacher prise."
"Lacher prise? What strange things you say!" murmured Bessie Alden.
"They meant to snub us, so that we shouldn't dare to go to Branches,"
Mrs. Westgate continued.
"On the contrary," said Bessie, "the duchess offered to show
me the place herself."
"Yes, you may depend upon it she won't let you out of her sight.
She will show you the place from morning till night."
"You have a theory for everything," said Bessie.
"And you apparently have none for anything."
"I saw no attempt to 'overawe' us," said the young girl.
"Their manners were not fine."
"They were not even good!" Mrs. Westgate declared.
Bessie was silent a while, but in a few moments she observed
that she had a very good theory. "They came to look at me,"
she said, as if this had been a very ingenious hypothesis.
Mrs. Westgate did it justice; she greeted it with a smile
and pronounced it most brilliant, while, in reality, she felt
that the young girl's skepticism, or her charity, or, as she
had sometimes called it appropriately, her idealism,
was proof against irony. Bessie, however, remained meditative
all the rest of that day and well on into the morrow.
On the morrow, before lunch, Mrs. Westgate had occasion to go
out for an hour, and left her sister writing a letter.
When she came back she met Lord Lambeth at the door of the hotel,
coming away. She thought he looked slightly embarrassed;
he was certainly very grave. "I am sorry to have missed you.
Won't you come back?" she asked.
"No," said the young man, "I can't. I have seen your sister.
I can never come back." Then he looked at her a moment and took her hand.
"Goodbye, Mrs. Westgate," he said. "You have been very kind to me."
And with what she thought a strange, sad look in his handsome young face,
he turned away.
She went in, and she found Bessie still writing her letter;
that is, Mrs. Westgate perceived she was sitting at the table with
the pen in her hand and not writing. "Lord Lambeth has been here,"
said the elder lady at last.
Then Bessie got up and showed her a pale, serious face. She bent this face
upon her sister for some time, confessing silently and a little pleading.
"I told him," she said at last, "that we could not go to Branches."
Mrs. Westgate displayed just a spark of irritation.
"He might have waited," she said with a smile, "till one had seen
the castle." Later, an hour afterward, she said, "Dear Bessie,
I wish you might have accepted him."
"I couldn't," said Bessie gently.
"He is an excellent fellow," said Mrs. Westgate.
"I couldn't," Bessie repeated.
"If it is only," her sister added, "because those women will think
that they succeeded--that they paralyzed us!"
Bessie Alden turned away; but presently she added, "They were interesting;
I should have liked to see them again."
"So should I!" cried Mrs. Westgate significantly.
"Because I don't care to," said Bessie Alden.
The morning after Lord Lambeth had had, with Percy Beaumont,
that exchange of ideas which has just been narrated, the ladies at
Jones's Hotel received from his lordship a written invitation to pay
their projected visit to Branches Castle on the following Tuesday.
"I think I have made up a very pleasant party," the young nobleman said.
"Several people whom you know, and my mother and sisters, who have
so long been regrettably prevented from making your acquaintance."
Bessie Alden lost no time in calling her sister's attention to
the injustice she had done the Duchess of Bayswater, whose hostility
was now proved to be a vain illusion.
"Wait till you see if she comes," said Mrs. Westgate.
"And if she is to meet us at her son's house the obligation
was all the greater for her to call upon us."
Bessie had not to wait long, and it appeared that Lord Lambeth's mother
now accepted Mrs. Westgate's view of her duties. On the morrow,
early in the afternoon, two cards were brought to the apartment
of the American ladies--one of them bearing the name of the Duchess
of Bayswater and the other that of the Countess of Pimlico.
Mrs. Westgate glanced at the clock. "It is not yet four," she said;
"they have come early; they wish to see us. We will receive them."
And she gave orders that her visitors should be admitted.
A few moments later they were introduced, and there was a solemn
exchange of amenities. The duchess was a large lady, with a fine
fresh color; the Countess of Pimlico was very pretty and elegant.
The duchess looked about her as she sat down--looked not especially
at Mrs. Westgate. "I daresay my son has told you that I have been
wanting to come and see you," she observed.
"You are very kind," said Mrs. Westgate, vaguely--her conscience not
allowing her to assent to this proposition--and, indeed, not permitting
her to enunciate her own with any appreciable emphasis.
"He says you were so kind to him in America," said the duchess.
"We are very glad," Mrs. Westgate replied, "to have been able to make
him a little more--a little less--a little more comfortable."
"I think he stayed at your house," remarked the Duchess of Bayswater,
looking at Bessie Alden.
"A very short time," said Mrs. Westgate.
"Oh!" said the duchess; and she continued to look at Bessie,
who was engaged in conversation with her daughter.
"Do you like London?" Lady Pimlico had asked of Bessie,
after looking at her a good deal--at her face and her hands,
her dress and her hair.
"Very much indeed," said Bessie.
"Do you like this hotel?"
"It is very comfortable," said Bessie.
"Do you like stopping at hotels?" inquired Lady Pimlico after a pause.
"I am very fond of traveling," Bessie answered, "and I suppose
hotels are a necessary part of it. But they are not the part
I am fondest of."
"Oh, I hate traveling," said the Countess of Pimlico and transferred
her attention to Mrs. Westgate.
"My son tells me you are going to Branches," the duchesspresently resumed.
"Lord Lambeth has been so good as to ask us," said Mrs. Westgate,
who perceived that her visitor had now begun to look at her, and who
had her customary happy consciousness of a distinguished appearance.
The only mitigation of her felicity on this point was that,
having inspected her visitor's own costume, she said to herself,
"She won't know how well I am dressed!"
"He has asked me to go, but I am not sure I shall be able,"
murmured the duchess.
"He had offered us the p--prospect of meeting you," said Mrs. Westgate.
"I hate the country at this season," responded the duchess.
Mrs. Westgate gave a little shrug. "I think it is pleasanter than London."
But the duchess's eyes were absent again; she was looking very fixedly
at Bessie. In a moment she slowly rose, walked to a chair that stood
empty at the young girl's right hand, and silently seated herself.
As she was a majestic, voluminous woman, this little transaction had,
inevitably, an air of somewhat impressiveintention. It diffused
a certain awkwardness, which Lady Pimlico, as a sympathetic daughter,
perhaps desired to rectify in turning to Mrs. Westgate.
"I daresay you go out a great deal," she observed.
"No, very little. We are strangers, and we didn't come here for society."
"I see," said Lady Pimlico. "It's rather nice in town just now."
"It's charming," said Mrs. Westgate. "But we only go to see a few people--
whom we like."
"Of course one can't like everyone," said Lady Pimlico.
"It depends upon one's society," Mrs. Westgate rejoined.
The Duchess meanwhile had addressed herself to Bessie.
"My son tells me the young ladies in America are so clever."
"I am glad they made so good an impression on him," said Bessie, smiling.
The Duchess was not smiling; her large fresh face was very tranquil.
"He is very susceptible," she said. "He thinks everyone clever,
and sometimes they are."
"Sometimes," Bessie assented, smiling still.
The duchess looked at her a little and then went on;
"Lambeth is very susceptible, but he is very volatile, too."
"Volatile?" asked Bessie.
"He is very inconstant. It won't do to depend on him."
"Ah," said Bessie, "I don't recognize that description.
We have depended on him greatly--my sister and I--and he has
never disappointed us."
"He will disappoint you yet," said the duchess.
Bessie gave a little laugh, as if she were amused at the
duchess's persistency. "I suppose it will depend on what we
expect of him."
"The less you expect, the better," Lord Lambeth's mother declared.
"Well," said Bessie, "we expect nothing unreasonable."
The duchess for a moment was silent, though she appeared to have more to say.
"Lambeth says he has seen so much of you," she presently began.
"He has been to see us very often; he has been very kind,"
said Bessie Alden.
"I daresay you are used to that. I am told there is a great deal
of that in America."
"A great deal of kindness?" the young girl inquired, smiling.
"Is that what you call it? I know you have different expressions."
"We certainly don't always understand each other," said Mrs. Westgate,
the termination of whose interview with Lady Pimlico allowed her to give
her attention to their elder visitor.
"I am speaking of the young men calling so much upon the young ladies,"
the duchess explained.
"But surely in England," said Mrs. Westgate, "the young ladies don't
call upon the young men?"
"Some of them do--almost!" Lady Pimlico declared.
"What the young men are a great parti."
"Bessie, you must make a note of that," said Mrs. Westgate.
"My sister," she added, "is a model traveler. She writes
down all the curious facts she hears in a little book she
keeps for the purpose."
The duchess was a little flushed; she looked all about the room, while her
daughter turned to Bessie. "My brother told us you were wonderfully clever,"
said Lady Pimlico.
"He should have said my sister," Bessie answered--"when she says
such things as that."
"Shall you be long at Branches?" the duchess asked, abruptly,
of the young girl.
"Lord Lambeth has asked us for three days," said Bessie.
"I shall go," the duchess declared, "and my daughter, too."
"That will be charming!" Bessie rejoined.
"Delightful!" murmured Mrs. Westgate.
"I shall expect to see a great deal of you," the duchess continued.
"When I go to Branches I monopolize my son's guests."
"They must be most happy," said Mrs. Westgate very graciously.
"I want immensely to see it--to see the castle," said Bessie
to the duchess. "I have never seen one--in England, at least;
and you know we have none in America."
"Ah, you are fond of castles?" inquired her Grace.
"Immensely!" replied the young girl. "It has been the dream
of my life to live in one."
The duchess looked at her a moment, as if she hardly knew
how to take this assurance, which, from her Grace's point
of view, was either very artless or very audacious.
"Well," she said, rising, "I will show you Branches myself."
And upon this the two great ladies took their departure.
"What did they mean by it?" asked Mrs. Westgate, when they were gone.
"They meant to be polite," said Bessie, "because we are going
to meet them."
"It is too late to be polite," Mrs. Westgate replied almost grimly.
"They meant to overawe us by their fine manners and their grandeur,
and to make you lacher prise."
"Lacher prise? What strange things you say!" murmured Bessie Alden.
"They meant to snub us, so that we shouldn't dare to go to Branches,"
Mrs. Westgate continued.
"On the contrary," said Bessie, "the duchess offered to show
me the place herself."
"Yes, you may depend upon it she won't let you out of her sight.
She will show you the place from morning till night."
"You have a theory for everything," said Bessie.
"And you apparently have none for anything."
"I saw no attempt to 'overawe' us," said the young girl.
"Their manners were not fine."
"They were not even good!" Mrs. Westgate declared.
Bessie was silent a while, but in a few moments she observed
that she had a very good theory. "They came to look at me,"
she said, as if this had been a very ingenious hypothesis.
Mrs. Westgate did it justice; she greeted it with a smile
and pronounced it most brilliant, while, in reality, she felt
that the young girl's skepticism, or her charity, or, as she
had sometimes called it appropriately, her idealism,
was proof against irony. Bessie, however, remained meditative
all the rest of that day and well on into the morrow.
On the morrow, before lunch, Mrs. Westgate had occasion to go
out for an hour, and left her sister writing a letter.
When she came back she met Lord Lambeth at the door of the hotel,
coming away. She thought he looked slightly embarrassed;
he was certainly very grave. "I am sorry to have missed you.
Won't you come back?" she asked.
"No," said the young man, "I can't. I have seen your sister.
I can never come back." Then he looked at her a moment and took her hand.
"Goodbye, Mrs. Westgate," he said. "You have been very kind to me."
And with what she thought a strange, sad look in his handsome young face,
he turned away.
She went in, and she found Bessie still writing her letter;
that is, Mrs. Westgate perceived she was sitting at the table with
the pen in her hand and not writing. "Lord Lambeth has been here,"
said the elder lady at last.
Then Bessie got up and showed her a pale, serious face. She bent this face
upon her sister for some time, confessing silently and a little pleading.
"I told him," she said at last, "that we could not go to Branches."
Mrs. Westgate displayed just a spark of irritation.
"He might have waited," she said with a smile, "till one had seen
the castle." Later, an hour afterward, she said, "Dear Bessie,
I wish you might have accepted him."
"I couldn't," said Bessie gently.
"He is an excellent fellow," said Mrs. Westgate.
"I couldn't," Bessie repeated.
"If it is only," her sister added, "because those women will think
that they succeeded--that they paralyzed us!"
Bessie Alden turned away; but presently she added, "They were interesting;
I should have liked to see them again."
"So should I!" cried Mrs. Westgate significantly.
- invitation [,invi´teiʃən]
n.邀请；请帖；吸引 (初中英语单词) - conscience [´kɔnʃəns] n.良心；道德心 (初中英语单词)
- presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
- visitor [´vizitə] n.访问者；来宾；参观者 (初中英语单词)
- costume [´kɔstju:m] n.服装(试样)；女装 (初中英语单词)
- absent [´æbsənt, əb´sent] a.不在的 vt.使缺席 (初中英语单词)
- silently [´sailəntli] ad.寂静地；沉默地 (初中英语单词)
- intention [in´tenʃən] n.意图；打算；意义 (初中英语单词)
- sympathetic [,simpə´θetik] a.同情的，有同情心的 (初中英语单词)
- meanwhile [´mi:n´wail] n.&ad.其间；同时 (初中英语单词)
- impression [im´preʃən] n.印刷；印象；效果 (初中英语单词)
- everyone [´evriwʌn] pron.=everybody 每人 (初中英语单词)
- disappoint [,disə´pɔint] vt.使失望；使....落空 (初中英语单词)
- interview [´intəvju:] n.&vt.接见；会见；交谈 (初中英语单词)
- brilliant [´briliənt] a.灿烂的；杰出的 (初中英语单词)
- reality [ri´æliti] n.现实(性)；真实；逼真 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- slightly [´slaitli] ad.轻微地；细长的 (初中英语单词)
- lordship [´lɔ:dʃip] n.贵族权力；阁下 (高中英语单词)
- injustice [in´dʒʌstis] n.不公正，不公平 (高中英语单词)
- duchess [´dʌtʃis] n.公爵夫人；女公爵 (高中英语单词)
- bearing [´beəriŋ] n.举止；忍耐；关系 (高中英语单词)
- assent [ə´sent] vi.&n.同意，赞成 (高中英语单词)
- customary [´kʌstəməri] a.通常的；惯例的 (高中英语单词)
- consciousness [´kɔnʃəsnis] n.意识；觉悟；知觉 (高中英语单词)
- distinguished [di´stiŋgwiʃt] a.卓越的，著名的 (高中英语单词)
- majestic [mə´dʒestik] a.雄伟的；崇高的 (高中英语单词)
- impressive [im´presiv] a.给人深刻印象的 (高中英语单词)
- assurance [ə´ʃuərəns] n.保证；自信；信任 (高中英语单词)
- apparently [ə´pærəntli] ad.显然，表面上地 (高中英语单词)
- ingenious [in´dʒi:niəs] a.富于创新的；巧妙的 (高中英语单词)
- pronounced [prə´naunst] a.发出音的；显著的 (高中英语单词)
- charity [´tʃæriti] n.施舍；慈悲；博爱 (高中英语单词)
- nobleman [´nəublmən] n.贵族 (英语四级单词)
- wonderfully [´wʌndəfuli] ad.令人惊讶地；奇妙地 (英语四级单词)
- immensely [i´mensli] ad.极大地，无限地 (英语四级单词)
- morrow [´mɔrəu] n.翌日 (英语四级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- countess [´kauntis] n.伯爵夫人；女伯爵 (英语六级单词)
- appreciable [ə´pri:ʃəbəl] a.看得出的 (英语六级单词)
- felicity [fi´lisiti] n.幸福；(措词)适当 (英语六级单词)
- susceptible [sə´septəbəl] a.敏感的；易受影响的 (英语六级单词)
- termination [,tə:mi´neiʃən] n.终止，结束；结局 (英语六级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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