-
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
The Open Window
"MY aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly1 discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately2 he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping3 the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
"I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice."
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice division.
"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.
"Hardly a soul," said Framton. "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here."
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.
"Only her name and address," admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.
"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would be since your sister's time."
"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.
"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.
"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"
"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor4 to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed5 in a treacherous6 piece of bog7. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it." Here the child's voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly8 human. "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof9 coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window - "
She broke off with a little shudder10. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled11 into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.
"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.
"She has been very interesting," said Framton.
"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They've been out for snipe in the marshes12 to-day, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you men-folk, isn't it?"
She rattled13 on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity14 of birds, and the prospects15 for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely16 horrible. He made a desperate but only partially17 successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic18 anniversary.
"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably wide-spread delusion19 that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments20 and infirmities, their cause and cure. "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued.
"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention - but not to what Framton was saying.
"Here they are at last!" she cried. "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight21 three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse22 young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid an imminent23 collision.
"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window; "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"
"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost."
"I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery24 somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah25 dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling26 and grinning and foaming27 just above him. Enough to make anyone their nerve."
Romance at short notice was her speciality.
点击收听单词发音
1 unduly | |
adv.过度地,不适当地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 privately | |
adv.以私人的身份,悄悄地,私下地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 helping | |
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 moor | |
n.荒野,沼泽;vt.(使)停泊;vi.停泊 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 engulfed | |
v.吞没,包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 treacherous | |
adj.不可靠的,有暗藏的危险的;adj.背叛的,背信弃义的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 bog | |
n.沼泽;室...陷入泥淖 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 falteringly | |
口吃地,支吾地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 waterproof | |
n.防水材料;adj.防水的;v.使...能防水 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 shudder | |
v.战粟,震动,剧烈地摇晃;n.战粟,抖动 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 bustled | |
闹哄哄地忙乱,奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 ); 催促 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 marshes | |
n.沼泽,湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 rattled | |
慌乱的,恼火的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 scarcity | |
n.缺乏,不足,萧条 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 prospects | |
n.希望,前途(恒为复数) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 partially | |
adv.部分地,从某些方面讲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 tragic | |
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 delusion | |
n.谬见,欺骗,幻觉,迷惑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 ailments | |
疾病(尤指慢性病),不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 twilight | |
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 hoarse | |
adj.嘶哑的,沙哑的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 imminent | |
adj.即将发生的,临近的,逼近的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 cemetery | |
n.坟墓,墓地,坟场 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 pariah | |
n.被社会抛弃者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 snarling | |
v.(指狗)吠,嗥叫, (人)咆哮( snarl的现在分词 );咆哮着说,厉声地说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 foaming | |
adj.布满泡沫的;发泡 | |
参考例句: |
|
|