章节正文
proper home. And now, if I may offer a suggestion, it is that we
take tea. Freed of its tannin, nothing, I think, is more
refreshing and stimulating."
"There's a train from Lyndhurst at thirteen minutes to six," said
Widgery, unfolding a time table. "That gives us about half an
hour or three-quarters here--if a conveyance is obtainable, that
is."
"A gelatine lozenge dropped into the tea cup precipitates the
tannin in the form of tannate of gelatine," said the clergyman to
Miss Mergle, in a confidential bray.
Jessie stood up, and saw through the window a depressed head and
shoulders over the top of the back of a garden seat. She moved
towards the door. "While you have tea, mother," she said, "I must
tell Mr. Hoopdriver of our arrangements."
"Don't you think I--" began the clergyman.
"No," said Jessie, very rudely; "I don't."
"But, Jessie, haven't you already--"
"You are already breaking the capitulation," said Jessie.
"Will you want the whole half hour?" said Widgery, at the bell.
"Every minute," said Jessie, in the doorway. "He's behaved very
nobly to me."
"There's tea," said Widgery.
"I've had tea."
"He may not have behaved badly," said the clergyman. "But he's
certainly an astonishingly weak person to let a wrong-headed
young girl--"
Jessie closed the door into the garden.
Meanwhile Mr. Hoopdriver made a sad figure in the sunlight
outside. It was over, this wonderful excursion of his, so far as
she was concerned, and with the swift blow that separated them,
he realised all that those days had done for him. He tried to
grasp the bearings of their position. Of course, they would take
her away to those social altitudes of hers. She would become an
inaccessible young lady again. Would they let him say good-bye to
her?
How extraordinary it had all been! He recalled the moment when he
had first seen her riding, with the sunlight behind her, along
the riverside road; he recalled that wonderful night at Bognor,
remembering it as if everything had been done of his own
initiative. "Brave, brave!" she had called him. And afterwards,
when she came down to him in the morning, kindly, quiet. But
ought he to have persuaded her then to return to her home? He
remembered some intention of the sort. Now these people snatched
her away from him as though he was scarcely fit to live in the
same world with her. No more he was! He felt he had presumed upon
her worldlyignorance in travelling with her day after day. She
was so dainty, so delightful, so serene. He began to recapitulate
her expressions, the light of her eyes, the turn of her face . .
.
He wasn't good enough to walk in the same road with her. Nobody
was. Suppose they let him say good-bye to her; what could he say?
That? But they were sure not to let her talk to him alone; her
mother would be there as--what was it? Chaperone. He'd never once
had a chance of saying what he felt; indeed, it was only now he
was beginning to realise what he felt. Love I he wouldn't
presume. It was worship. If only he could have one more chance.
He must have one more chance, somewhere, somehow. Then he would
pour out his soul to her eloquently. He felt eloquently, and
words would come. He was dust under her feet . . .
His meditation was interrupted by the click of a door handle, and
Jessie appeared in the sunlight under the verandah. "Come away
from here," she said to Hoopdriver, as he rose to meet her. "I'm
going home with them. We have to say good-bye."
Mr. Hoopdriver winced, opened and shut his mouth, and rose
without a word.
XL
At first Jessie Milton and Mr. Hoopdriver walked away from the
hotel in silence. He heard a catching in her breath and glanced
at her and saw her ips pressed tight and a tear on her cheek. Her
face was hot and bright. She was looking straight before her. He
could think of nothing to say, and thrust his hands in his
pockets and looked away from her intentionally. After a while she
began to talk. They dealt disjointedly with scenery first, and
then with the means of self-education. She took his address at
Antrobus's and promised to send him some books. But even with
that it was spiritless, aching talk, Hoopdriver felt, for the
fighting mood was over. She seemed, to him, preoccupied with the
memories of her late battle, and that appearance hurt him.
"It's the end," he whispered to himself. "It's the end."
They went into a hollow and up a gentle wooded slope, and came at
last to a high and open space overlooking a wide expanse of
country. There, by a common impulse, they stopped. She looked at
her watch--a little ostentatiously. They stared at the billows of
forest rolling away beneath them, crest beyond crest, of leafy
trees, fading at last into blue.
"The end" ran through his mind, to the exclusion of all speakable
thoughts.
"And so," she said, presently, breaking the silence, "it comes to
good-bye."
For half a minute he did not answer. Then he gathered his
resolution. "There is one thing I MUST say."
"Well?" she said, surprised and abruptly forgetting the recent
argument. "I ask no return. But--"
Then he stopped. "I won't say it. It's no good. It would be rot
from me--now. I wasn't going to say anything. Good-bye."
She looked at him with a startled expression in her eyes. "No,"
she said. "But don't forget you are going to work. Remember,
brother Chris, you are my friend. You will work. You are not a
very strong man, you know, now--you will forgive me--nor do you
know all you should. But what will you be in six years' time?"
He stared hard in front of him still, and the lines about his
weak mouth seemed to strengthen. He knew she understood what he
could not say.
"I'll work," he said, concisely. They stood side by side for a
moment. Then he said, with a motion of his head, "I won't come
back to THEM. Do you mind? Going back alone?"
She took ten seconds to think. "No." she said, and held out her
hand, biting her nether lip. "GOOD-BYE," she whispered.
He turned, with a white face, looked into her eyes, took her hand
limply, and then with a sudden impulse, lifted it to his lips.
She would have snatched it away, but his grip tightened to her
movement. She felt the touch of his lips, and then he had dropped
her fingers and turned from her and was striding down the slope.
A dozen paces away his foot turned in the lip of a rabbit hole,
and he stumbled forward and almost fell. He recovered his balance
and went on, not looking back. He never once looked back. She
stared at his receding figure until it was small and far below
her, and then, the tears running over her eyelids now, turned
slowly, and walked with her hands gripped hard together behind
her, towards Stoney Cross again.
"I did not know," she whispered to herself. "I did not
understand. Even now--No, I do not understand."
THE ENVOY
XLI
So the story ends, dear Reader. Mr. Hoopdriver, sprawling down
there among the bracken, must sprawl without our prying, I think,
or listening to what chances to his breathing. And of what came
of it all, of the six years and afterwards, this is no place to
tell. In truth, there is no telling it, for the years have still
to run. But if you see how a mere counter-jumper, a cad on
castors, and a fool to boot, may come to feel the little
insufficiencies of life, and if he has to any extent won your
sympathies, my end is attained. (If it is not attained, may
Heaven forgive us both!) Nor will we follow this adventurous
young lady of ours back to her home at Surbiton, to her new
struggle against Widgery and Mrs. Milton combined. For, as she
will presently hear, that devoted man has got his reward. For
her, also, your sympathies are invited.
The rest of this great holiday, too--five days there are left of
it--is beyond the limits of our design. You see fitfully a
slender figure in a dusty brown suit and heather mixture
stockings, and brown shoes not intended to be cycled in, flitting
Londonward through Hampshire and Berkshire and Surrey, going
economically--for excellent reasons. Day by day he goes on,
riding fitfully and for the most part through bye-roads, but
getting a few miles to the north-eastward every day. He is a
narrow-chested person, with a nose hot and tanned at the bridge
with unwonted exposure, and brown, red-knuckled fists. A musing
expression sits upon the face of this rider, you observe.
Sometimes he whistles noiselessly to himself, sometimes he speaks
aloud, "a juiced good try, anyhow!" you hear; and sometimes, and
that too often for my liking, he looks irritable and hopeless. "I
know," he says, "I know. It's over and done. It isn't IN me. You
ain't man enough, Hoopdriver. Look at yer silly hands! . . . Oh,
my God!" and a gust of passion comes upon him and he rides
furiously for a space.
Sometimes again his face softens. "Anyhow, if I'm not to see her-
-she's going to lend me books," he thinks, and gets such comfort
as he can. Then again; "Books! What's books?" Once or twice
triumphant memories of the earlier incidents nerve his face for a
while. "I put the ky-bosh on HIS little game," he remarks. "I DID
that," and one might even call him happy in these phases. And,
by-the-bye, the machine, you notice, has been enamel-painted grey
and carries a sonorous gong.
This figure passes through Basingstoke and Bagshot, Staines,
Hampton, and Richmond. At last, in Putney High Street, glowing
with the warmth of an August sunset and with all the 'prentice
boys busy shutting up shop, and the work girls going home, and
the shop folks peeping abroad, and the white 'buses full of late
clerks and city folk rumbling home to their dinners, we part from
him. He is back. To-morrow, the early rising, the dusting, and
drudgery, begin again--but with a difference, with wonderful
memories and still more wonderful desires and ambitions replacing
those discrepant dreams.
He turns out of the High Street at the corner, dismounts with a
sigh, and pushes his machine through the gates of the Antrobus
stable yard, as the apprentice with the high collar holds them
open. There are words of greeting. "South Coast," you hear; and
"splendid weather--splendid." He sighs. "Yes--swapped him off for
a couple of sovs. It's a juiced good machine."
The gate closes upon him with a slam, and he vanishes from our
ken.
End
take tea. Freed of its tannin, nothing, I think, is more
refreshing and stimulating."
"There's a train from Lyndhurst at thirteen minutes to six," said
Widgery, unfolding a time table. "That gives us about half an
hour or three-quarters here--if a conveyance is obtainable, that
is."
"A gelatine lozenge dropped into the tea cup precipitates the
tannin in the form of tannate of gelatine," said the clergyman to
Miss Mergle, in a confidential bray.
Jessie stood up, and saw through the window a depressed head and
shoulders over the top of the back of a garden seat. She moved
towards the door. "While you have tea, mother," she said, "I must
tell Mr. Hoopdriver of our arrangements."
"Don't you think I--" began the clergyman.
"No," said Jessie, very rudely; "I don't."
"But, Jessie, haven't you already--"
"You are already breaking the capitulation," said Jessie.
"Will you want the whole half hour?" said Widgery, at the bell.
"Every minute," said Jessie, in the doorway. "He's behaved very
nobly to me."
"There's tea," said Widgery.
"I've had tea."
"He may not have behaved badly," said the clergyman. "But he's
certainly an astonishingly weak person to let a wrong-headed
young girl--"
Jessie closed the door into the garden.
Meanwhile Mr. Hoopdriver made a sad figure in the sunlight
outside. It was over, this wonderful excursion of his, so far as
she was concerned, and with the swift blow that separated them,
he realised all that those days had done for him. He tried to
grasp the bearings of their position. Of course, they would take
her away to those social altitudes of hers. She would become an
inaccessible young lady again. Would they let him say good-bye to
her?
How extraordinary it had all been! He recalled the moment when he
had first seen her riding, with the sunlight behind her, along
the riverside road; he recalled that wonderful night at Bognor,
remembering it as if everything had been done of his own
initiative. "Brave, brave!" she had called him. And afterwards,
when she came down to him in the morning, kindly, quiet. But
ought he to have persuaded her then to return to her home? He
remembered some intention of the sort. Now these people snatched
her away from him as though he was scarcely fit to live in the
same world with her. No more he was! He felt he had presumed upon
her worldlyignorance in travelling with her day after day. She
was so dainty, so delightful, so serene. He began to recapitulate
her expressions, the light of her eyes, the turn of her face . .
.
He wasn't good enough to walk in the same road with her. Nobody
was. Suppose they let him say good-bye to her; what could he say?
That? But they were sure not to let her talk to him alone; her
mother would be there as--what was it? Chaperone. He'd never once
had a chance of saying what he felt; indeed, it was only now he
was beginning to realise what he felt. Love I he wouldn't
presume. It was worship. If only he could have one more chance.
He must have one more chance, somewhere, somehow. Then he would
pour out his soul to her eloquently. He felt eloquently, and
words would come. He was dust under her feet . . .
His meditation was interrupted by the click of a door handle, and
Jessie appeared in the sunlight under the verandah. "Come away
from here," she said to Hoopdriver, as he rose to meet her. "I'm
going home with them. We have to say good-bye."
Mr. Hoopdriver winced, opened and shut his mouth, and rose
without a word.
XL
At first Jessie Milton and Mr. Hoopdriver walked away from the
hotel in silence. He heard a catching in her breath and glanced
at her and saw her ips pressed tight and a tear on her cheek. Her
face was hot and bright. She was looking straight before her. He
could think of nothing to say, and thrust his hands in his
pockets and looked away from her intentionally. After a while she
began to talk. They dealt disjointedly with scenery first, and
then with the means of self-education. She took his address at
Antrobus's and promised to send him some books. But even with
that it was spiritless, aching talk, Hoopdriver felt, for the
fighting mood was over. She seemed, to him, preoccupied with the
memories of her late battle, and that appearance hurt him.
"It's the end," he whispered to himself. "It's the end."
They went into a hollow and up a gentle wooded slope, and came at
last to a high and open space overlooking a wide expanse of
country. There, by a common impulse, they stopped. She looked at
her watch--a little ostentatiously. They stared at the billows of
forest rolling away beneath them, crest beyond crest, of leafy
trees, fading at last into blue.
"The end" ran through his mind, to the exclusion of all speakable
thoughts.
"And so," she said, presently, breaking the silence, "it comes to
good-bye."
For half a minute he did not answer. Then he gathered his
resolution. "There is one thing I MUST say."
"Well?" she said, surprised and abruptly forgetting the recent
argument. "I ask no return. But--"
Then he stopped. "I won't say it. It's no good. It would be rot
from me--now. I wasn't going to say anything. Good-bye."
She looked at him with a startled expression in her eyes. "No,"
she said. "But don't forget you are going to work. Remember,
brother Chris, you are my friend. You will work. You are not a
very strong man, you know, now--you will forgive me--nor do you
know all you should. But what will you be in six years' time?"
He stared hard in front of him still, and the lines about his
weak mouth seemed to strengthen. He knew she understood what he
could not say.
"I'll work," he said, concisely. They stood side by side for a
moment. Then he said, with a motion of his head, "I won't come
back to THEM. Do you mind? Going back alone?"
She took ten seconds to think. "No." she said, and held out her
hand, biting her nether lip. "GOOD-BYE," she whispered.
He turned, with a white face, looked into her eyes, took her hand
limply, and then with a sudden impulse, lifted it to his lips.
She would have snatched it away, but his grip tightened to her
movement. She felt the touch of his lips, and then he had dropped
her fingers and turned from her and was striding down the slope.
A dozen paces away his foot turned in the lip of a rabbit hole,
and he stumbled forward and almost fell. He recovered his balance
and went on, not looking back. He never once looked back. She
stared at his receding figure until it was small and far below
her, and then, the tears running over her eyelids now, turned
slowly, and walked with her hands gripped hard together behind
her, towards Stoney Cross again.
"I did not know," she whispered to herself. "I did not
understand. Even now--No, I do not understand."
THE ENVOY
XLI
So the story ends, dear Reader. Mr. Hoopdriver, sprawling down
there among the bracken, must sprawl without our prying, I think,
or listening to what chances to his breathing. And of what came
of it all, of the six years and afterwards, this is no place to
tell. In truth, there is no telling it, for the years have still
to run. But if you see how a mere counter-jumper, a cad on
castors, and a fool to boot, may come to feel the little
insufficiencies of life, and if he has to any extent won your
sympathies, my end is attained. (If it is not attained, may
Heaven forgive us both!) Nor will we follow this adventurous
young lady of ours back to her home at Surbiton, to her new
struggle against Widgery and Mrs. Milton combined. For, as she
will presently hear, that devoted man has got his reward. For
her, also, your sympathies are invited.
The rest of this great holiday, too--five days there are left of
it--is beyond the limits of our design. You see fitfully a
slender figure in a dusty brown suit and heather mixture
stockings, and brown shoes not intended to be cycled in, flitting
Londonward through Hampshire and Berkshire and Surrey, going
economically--for excellent reasons. Day by day he goes on,
riding fitfully and for the most part through bye-roads, but
getting a few miles to the north-eastward every day. He is a
narrow-chested person, with a nose hot and tanned at the bridge
with unwonted exposure, and brown, red-knuckled fists. A musing
expression sits upon the face of this rider, you observe.
Sometimes he whistles noiselessly to himself, sometimes he speaks
aloud, "a juiced good try, anyhow!" you hear; and sometimes, and
that too often for my liking, he looks irritable and hopeless. "I
know," he says, "I know. It's over and done. It isn't IN me. You
ain't man enough, Hoopdriver. Look at yer silly hands! . . . Oh,
my God!" and a gust of passion comes upon him and he rides
furiously for a space.
Sometimes again his face softens. "Anyhow, if I'm not to see her-
-she's going to lend me books," he thinks, and gets such comfort
as he can. Then again; "Books! What's books?" Once or twice
triumphant memories of the earlier incidents nerve his face for a
while. "I put the ky-bosh on HIS little game," he remarks. "I DID
that," and one might even call him happy in these phases. And,
by-the-bye, the machine, you notice, has been enamel-painted grey
and carries a sonorous gong.
This figure passes through Basingstoke and Bagshot, Staines,
Hampton, and Richmond. At last, in Putney High Street, glowing
with the warmth of an August sunset and with all the 'prentice
boys busy shutting up shop, and the work girls going home, and
the shop folks peeping abroad, and the white 'buses full of late
clerks and city folk rumbling home to their dinners, we part from
him. He is back. To-morrow, the early rising, the dusting, and
drudgery, begin again--but with a difference, with wonderful
memories and still more wonderful desires and ambitions replacing
those discrepant dreams.
He turns out of the High Street at the corner, dismounts with a
sigh, and pushes his machine through the gates of the Antrobus
stable yard, as the apprentice with the high collar holds them
open. There are words of greeting. "South Coast," you hear; and
"splendid weather--splendid." He sighs. "Yes--swapped him off for
a couple of sovs. It's a juiced good machine."
The gate closes upon him with a slam, and he vanishes from our
ken.
End
- suggestion [sə´dʒestʃən]
n.建议，提议；暗示 (初中英语单词) - doorway [´dɔ:wei] n.门口 (初中英语单词)
- extraordinary [ik´strɔ:dinəri] a.非常的；额外的 (初中英语单词)
- sunlight [´sʌnlait] n.日光 (初中英语单词)
- intention [in´tenʃən] n.意图；打算；意义 (初中英语单词)
- ignorance [´ignərəns] n.无知，愚昧 (初中英语单词)
- delightful [di´laitful] a.讨人喜欢的 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- worship [´wə:ʃip] n.&v.崇拜；敬仰 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- thrust [θrʌst] v.&n.猛推；冲；刺；挤进 (初中英语单词)
- impulse [´impʌls] n.推动(力)；冲动；刺激 (初中英语单词)
- presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
- abruptly [ə´brʌptli] ad.突然地；粗鲁地 (初中英语单词)
- forgive [fə´giv] vt.原谅，谅解，宽恕 (初中英语单词)
- strengthen [´streŋθən, ´strenθən] vt.加强 vi.变强 (初中英语单词)
- rabbit [´ræbit] n.兔子，野兔 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- extent [ik´stent] n.长度；程度；范围 (初中英语单词)
- reward [ri´wɔ:d] n.&v.报答；报酬；奖赏 (初中英语单词)
- holiday [´hɔlidi] n.假日，假期，节日 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- warmth [wɔ:mθ] n.温暖；热情；激动 (初中英语单词)
- sunset [´sʌnset] n.日落；晚霞 (初中英语单词)
- abroad [ə´brɔ:d] ad.海外；到处；广泛 (初中英语单词)
- collar [´kɔlə] n.衣领；(狗等的)项圈 (初中英语单词)
- clergyman [´klə:dʒimən] n.牧师；教士 (高中英语单词)
- concerned [kən´sə:nd] a.有关的；担心的 (高中英语单词)
- dainty [´deinti] a.秀丽的 n.美味 (高中英语单词)
- serene [si´ri:n] n.&a.清澈的；宁静的 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- scenery [´si:nəri] n.舞台布景 (高中英语单词)
- motion [´məuʃən] n.手势 vt.打手势 (高中英语单词)
- exposure [ik´spəuʒə] n.暴露；曝光(时间) (高中英语单词)
- hopeless [´həupləs] a.无望的，无可救药的 (高中英语单词)
- conveyance [kən´veiəns] n.运送；传达；传播 (英语四级单词)
- confidential [,kɔnfi´denʃəl] a.极受信任的；心腹的 (英语四级单词)
- excursion [ik´skə:ʃən] n.短途旅行，游览；离题 (英语四级单词)
- worldly [´wə:ldli] a.现世的；世俗的 (英语四级单词)
- meditation [,medi´teiʃən] n.熟虑；默想 (英语四级单词)
- wooded [´wudid] a.多树林的 (英语四级单词)
- devoted [di´vəutid] a.献身...的，忠实的 (英语四级单词)
- noiselessly [´nɔizlisli] ad.静静地，轻轻地 (英语四级单词)
- apprentice [ə´prentis] n.学徒 vt.使当学徒 (英语四级单词)
- depressed [di´prest] a.消沉的；萧条的 (英语六级单词)
- rudely [´ru:dli] ad.粗鲁地；粗略地 (英语六级单词)
- riverside [´rivəsaid] n.河岸 a.河岸上的 (英语六级单词)
- preoccupied [pri´ɔkjupaid] a.被先占的；出神的 (英语六级单词)
- expanse [ik´spæns] n.广阔；宽阔的区域 (英语六级单词)
- exclusion [ik´sklu:ʒən] n.拒绝；逐出，排除 (英语六级单词)
- biting [´baitiŋ] a.刺痛的；尖利的 (英语六级单词)
- nether [´neðə] a.下面的；地下的 (英语六级单词)
- sprawl [sprɔ:l] vi.(伸开手足)坐着 (英语六级单词)
- heather [´heðə] n.石南属植物 (英语六级单词)
- liking [´laikiŋ] n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 (英语六级单词)
- irritable [´iritəbəl] a.急躁的；过敏的 (英语六级单词)
- august [ɔ:´gʌst] a.尊严的；威严的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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