老妇人的故事 英文版The Old Wives' Tale
阿诺德.本涅特 Arnold Bennett
III
That afternoon Sophia, too busy with her own affairs to noticeanything abnormal in the relations between her mother andConstance, and quite ignorant that there had been an unsuccessfulplot against her, went forth to call upon Miss Chetwynd, with whomshe had remained very friendly: she considered that she and MissChetwynd formed an aristocracy of intellect, and the family indeedtacitly admitted this. She practised no secrecy in her departurefrom the shop; she merely dressed, in her second-best hoop, andwent, having been ready at any moment to tell her mother, if hermother caught her and inquired, that she was going to see MissChetwynd. And she did go to see Miss Chetwynd, arriving at thehouse-school, which lay amid trees on the road to Turnhill, justbeyond the turnpike, at precisely a quarter-past four. As MissChetwynd's pupils left at four o'clock, and as Miss Chetwyndinvariably took a walk immediately afterwards, Sophia was able tocontain her surprise upon being informed that Miss Chetwynd wasnot in. She had not intended that Miss Chetwynd should be in.
She turned off to the right, up the side road which, starting fromthe turnpike, led in the direction of Moorthorne and Red Cow, twomining villages. Her heart beat with fear as she began to followthat road, for she was upon a terrific adventure. What mostfrightened her, perhaps, was her own astounding audacity. She wasalarmed by something within herself which seemed to be no part ofherself and which produced in her curious, disconcerting, fleetingimpressions of unreality.
In the morning she had heard the voice of Mr. Scales from theshowroom--that voice whose even distant murmur caused creepings ofthe skin in her back. And she had actually stood on the counter infront of the window in order to see down perpendicularly into theSquare; by so doing she had had a glimpse of the top of hisluggage on a barrow, and of the crown of his hat occasionally whenhe went outside to tempt Mr. Povey. She might have gone down intothe shop--there was no slightest reason why she should not; threemonths had elapsed since the name of Mr. Scales had beenmentioned, and her mother had evidently forgotten the triflingincident of New Year's Day--but she was incapable of descendingthe stairs! She went to the head of the stairs and peeped throughthe balustrade--and she could not get further. For nearly ahundred days those extraordinary lamps had been brightly burningin her head; and now the light-giver had come again, and her feetwould not move to the meeting; now the moment had arrived forwhich alone she had lived, and she could not seize it as itpassed! "Why don't I go downstairs?" she asked herself. "Am Iafraid to meet him?"
The customer sent up by Constance had occupied the surface of herlife for ten minutes, trying on hats; and during this time she waspraying wildly that Mr. Scales might not go, and asserting that itwas impossible he should go without at least asking for her. Hadshe not counted the days to this day? When the customer leftSophia followed her downstairs, and saw Mr. Scales chatting withConstance. All her self-possession instantly returned to her, andshe joined them with a rather mocking smile. After Mr. Povey'sstrange summons had withdrawn Constance from the corner, Mr.Scales's tone had changed; it had thrilled her. "You are YOU," ithad said, "there is you--and there is the rest of the universe!"Then he had not forgotten; she had lived in his heart; she had notfor three months been the victim of her own fancies! ... She sawhim put a piece of folded white paper on the top edge of thescreening box and flick it down to her. She blushed scarlet,staring at it as it lay on the counter. He said nothing, and shecould not speak. ... He had prepared that paper, then, beforehand,on the chance of being able to give it to her! This thought wasexquisite but full of terror. "I must really go," he had said,lamely, with emotion in his voice, and he had gone--like that! Andshe put the piece of paper into the pocket of her apron, andhastened away. She had not even seen, as she turned up the stairs,her mother standing by the till--that spot which was the conning-tower of the whole shop. She ran, ran, breathless to the bedroom.
"I am a wicked girl!" she said quite frankly, on the road to therendezvous. "It is a dream that I am going to meet him. It cannotbe true. There is time to go back. If I go back I am safe. I havesimply called at Miss Chetwynd's and she wasn't in, and no one cansay a word. But if I go on--if I'm seen! What a fool I am to goon!"
And she went on, impelled by, amongst other things, an immense,naive curiosity, and the vanity which the bare fact of his notehad excited. The Loop railway was being constructed at thatperiod, and hundreds of navvies were at work on it between Bursleyand Turnhill. When she came to the new bridge over the cutting, hewas there, as he had written that he would be.
They were very nervous, they greeted each other stiffly and asthough they had met then for the first time that day. Nothing wassaid about his note, nor about her response to it. Her presencewas treated by both of them as a basic fact of the situation whichit would be well not to disturb by comment. Sophia could not hideher shame, but her shame only aggravated the stinging charm of herbeauty. She was wearing a hard Amazonian hat, with a lifted veil,the final word of fashion that spring in the Five Towns; her face,beaten by the fresh breeze, shone rosily; her eyes glittered underthe dark hat, and the violent colours of her Victorian frock--green and crimson--could not spoil those cheeks. If she lookedearthwards, frowning, she was the more adorable so. He had comedown the clayey incline from the unfinished red bridge to welcomeher, and when the salutations were over they stood still, hegazing apparently at the horizon and she at the yellow marl roundthe edges of his boots. The encounter was as far away fromSophia's ideal conception as Manchester from Venice.
"So this is the new railway!" said she.
"Yes," said he. "This is your new railway. You can see it betterfrom the bridge."
"But it's very sludgy up there," she objected with a pout.
"Further on it's quite dry," he reassured her.
From the bridge they had a sudden view of a raw gash in the earth;and hundreds of men were crawling about in it, busy with minuteoperations, like flies in a great wound. There was a continuousrattle of picks, resembling a muffled shower of hail, and in thedistance a tiny locomotive was leading a procession of tinywaggons.
"And those are the navvies!" she murmured.
The unspeakable doings of the navvies in the Five Towns hadreached even her: how they drank and swore all day on Sundays, howtheir huts and houses were dens of the most appalling infamy, howthey were the curse of a God-fearing and respectable district! Sheand Gerald Scales glanced down at these dangerous beasts of preyin their yellow corduroys and their open shirts revealing hairychests. No doubt they both thought how inconvenient it was thatrailways could not be brought into existence without the aid ofsuch revolting and swinish animals. They glanced down from theheight of their nice decorum and felt the powerful attraction ofsimilar superior manners. The manners of the navvies were suchthat Sophia could not even regard them, nor Gerald Scales permither to regard them, without blushing.
In a united blush they turned away, up the gradual slope. Sophiaknew no longer what she was doing. For some minutes she was ashelpless as though she had been in a balloon with him.
"I got my work done early," he said; and added complacently, "As amatter of fact I've had a pretty good day."
She was reassured to learn that he was not neglecting his duties.To be philandering with a commercial traveller who has finished agood day's work seemed less shocking than dalliance with aneglecter of business; it seemed indeed, by comparison,respectable.
"It must be very interesting," she said primly.
"What, my trade?"
"Yes. Always seeing new places and so on."
"In a way it is," he admitted judicially. "But I can tell you itwas much more agreeable being in Paris."
"Oh! Have you been to Paris?"
"Lived there for nearly two years," he said carelessly. Then,looking at her, "Didn't you notice I never came for a long time?"
"I didn't know you were in Paris," she evaded him.
"I went to start a sort of agency for Birkinshaws," he said.
"I suppose you talk French like anything."
"Of course one has to talk French," said he. "I learnt French whenI was a child from a governess--my uncle made me--but I forgotmost of it at school, and at the Varsity you never learn anything--precious little, anyhow! Certainly not French!"
She was deeply impressed. He was a much greater personage than shehad guessed. It had never occurred to her that commercialtravellers had to go to a university to finish their complexeducation. And then, Paris! Paris meant absolutely nothing to herbut pure, impossible, unattainable romance. And he had been there!The clouds of glory were around him. He was a hero, dazzling. Hehad come to her out of another world. He was her miracle. He wasalmost too miraculous to be true.
She, living her humdrum life at the shop! And he, elegant,brilliant, coming from far cities! They together, side by side,strolling up the road towards the Moorthorne ridge! There wasnothing quite like this in the stories of Miss Sewell.
"Your uncle ...?" she questioned vaguely.
"Yes, Mr. Boldero. He's a partner in Birkinshaws."
"Oh!"
"You've heard of him? He's a great Wesleyan."
"Oh yes," she said. "When we had the Wesleyan Conference here, he--"
"He's always very great at Conferences," said Gerald Scales.
"I didn't know he had anything to do with Birkinshaws."
"He isn't a working partner of course," Mr. Scales explained. "Buthe means me to be one. I have to learn the business from thebottom. So now you understand why I'm a traveller."
"I see," she said, still more deeply impressed.
"I'm an orphan," said Gerald. "And Uncle Boldero took me in handwhen I was three."
"I SEE!" she repeated.
"Now tell me about you," Mr. Scales suggested.
"Oh! I'm nothing!" she burst out.
The exclamation was perfectly sincere. Mr. Scales's disclosuresconcerning himself, while they excited her, discouraged her.
"You're the finest girl I've ever met, anyhow," said Mr. Scaleswith gallant emphasis, and he dug his stick into the soft ground.
She blushed and made no answer.
They walked on in silence, each wondering apprehensively whatmight happen next.
Suddenly Mr. Scales stopped at a dilapidated low brick wall, builtin a circle, close to the side of the road.
"I expect that's an old pit-shaft," said he.
"Yes, I expect it is."
He picked up a rather large stone and approached the wall.
"Be careful!" she enjoined him.
And those are the navvies!" she.
"Oh! It's all right," he said lightly. "Let's listen. Come nearand listen."
She reluctantly obeyed, and he threw the stone over the dirtyruined wall, the top of which was about level with his hat. Fortwo or three seconds there was no sound. Then a faint reveberationechoed from the depths of the shaft. And on Sophia's brain arosedreadful images of the ghosts of miners wandering for ever insubterranean passages, far, far beneath. The noise of the fallingstone had awakened for her the secret terrors of the earth. Shecould scarcely even look at the wall without a spasm of fear.
"How strange," said Mr. Scales, a little awe in his voice, too,"that that should be left there like that! I suppose it's verydeep."
he shouted down the.
"Some of them are," she trembled.
"I must just have a look," he said, and put his hands on the topof the wall.
"Come away!" she cried.
"Oh! It's all right!" he said again, soothingly. "The wall's asfirm as a rock." And he took a slight spring and looked over.
She shrieked loudly. She saw him at the distant bottom of theshaft, mangled, drowning. The ground seemed to quake under herfeet. A horrible sickness seized her. And she shrieked again.Never had she guessed that existence could be such pain.
He slid down from the wall, and turned to her. "No bottom to beseen!" he said. Then, observing her transformed face, he cameclose to her, with a superior masculine smile. "Silly littlething!" he said coaxingly, endearingly, putting forth all hispower to charm.
He perceived at once that he had miscalculated the effects of hisaction. Her alarm changed swiftly to angry offence. She drew backwith a haughty gesture, as if he had intended actually to touchher. Did he suppose, because she chanced to be walking with him,that he had the right to address her familiarly, to tease her, tocall her 'silly little thing' and to put his face against hers?She resented his freedom with quick and passionate indignation.
She showed him her proud back and nodding head and wrathfulskirts; and hurried off without a word, almost running. As forhim, he was so startled by unexpected phenomena that he didnothing for a moment--merely stood looking and feeling foolish.
Then she heard him in pursuit. She was too proud to stop or evento reduce her speed.
"I didn't mean to--" he muttered behind her.
No recognition from her.
"I suppose I ought to apologize," he said.
"I should just think you ought," she answered, furious.
"I'll thank you not to follow me, Mr. Scales." She paused, andscorched him with her displeasure. Then she went forward. And herheart was in torture because it could not persuade her to remainwith him, and smile and forgive, and win his smile.
"I shall write to you," he shouted down the slope.
She kept on, the ridiculous child. But the agony she had sufferedas he clung to the frail wall was not ridiculous, nor her darkvision of the mine, nor her tremendous indignation when, afterdisobeying her, he forgot that she was a queen. To her the scenewas sublimely tragic. Soon she had recrossed the bridge, but notthe same she! So this was the end of the incredible adventure!
When she reached the turnpike she thought of her mother and ofConstance. She had completely forgotten them; for a space they hadutterly ceased to exist for her.