曼斯菲尔德庄园 Chapter 22

CHAPTER XXII ,Fanny's consequence increased on the departure of her cousins. Becoming, as she then did, the only young woman in the drawing-room, the only occupier of that interesting division of a family in which she had hitherto held so humble ¹ a third, it was impossible for her not to be more looked at, more thought of and attended to, than she had ever been before; and "Where is Fanny?" became no uncommon ² question, even without her being wanted for any one's convenience. ,Not only at home did her value increase, but at the Parsonage too. In that house, which she had hardly entered twice a year since Mr. Norris's death, she became a welcome, an invited guest, and in the gloom and dirt of a November day, most acceptable to Mary Crawford. Her visits there, beginning by chance, were continued by solicitation ³. Mrs. Grant, really eager to get any change for her sister, could, by the easiest self-deceit, persuade herself that she was doing the kindest thing by Fanny, and giving her the most important opportunities of improvement in pressing her frequent calls. ,Fanny, having been sent into the village on some errand by her aunt Norris, was overtaken by a heavy shower close to the Parsonage; and being descried ⁴ from one of the windows endeavouring to find shelter under the branches and lingering leaves of an oak just beyond their premises ⁵, was forced, though not without some modest reluctance ⁶ on her part, to come in. A civil servant she had withstood; but when Dr. Grant himself went out with an umbrella, there was nothing to be done but to be very much ashamed, and to get into the house as fast as possible; and to poor Miss Crawford, who had just been contemplating ⁷ the dismal ⁸ rain in a very desponding state of mind, sighing over the ruin of all her plan of exercise for that morning, and of every chance of seeing a single creature beyond themselves for the next twenty-four hours, the sound of a little bustle ⁹ at the front door, and the sight of Miss Price dripping with wet in the vestibule, was delightful ¹⁰. The value of an event on a wet day in the country was most forcibly brought before her. She was all alive again directly, and among the most active in being useful to Fanny, in detecting her to be wetter than she would at first allow, and providing her with dry clothes; and Fanny, after being obliged to submit to all this attention, and to being assisted and waited on by mistresses and maids, being also obliged, on returning downstairs, to be fixed ¹¹ in their drawing-room for an hour while the rain continued, the blessing ¹² of something fresh to see and think of was thus extended to Miss Crawford, and might carry on her spirits to the period of dressing ¹³ and dinner. ,The two sisters were so kind to her, and so pleasant, that Fanny might have enjoyed her visit could she have believed herself not in the way, and could she have foreseen that the weather would certainly clear at the end of the hour, and save her from the shame of having Dr. Grant's carriage and horses out to take her home, with which she was threatened. As to anxiety for any alarm that her absence in such weather might occasion at home, she had nothing to suffer on that score; for as her being out was known only to her two aunts, she was perfectly ¹⁴ aware that none would be felt, and that in whatever cottage aunt Norris might chuse to establish her during the rain, her being in such cottage would be indubitable to aunt Bertram. ,It was beginning to look brighter, when Fanny, observing a harp ¹⁵ in the room, asked some questions about it, which soon led to an acknowledgment of her wishing very much to hear it, and a confession ¹⁶, which could hardly be believed, of her having never yet heard it since its being in Mansfield. To Fanny herself it appeared a very simple and natural circumstance. She had scarcely ever been at the Parsonage since the instrument's arrival, there had been no reason that she should; but Miss Crawford, calling to mind an early expressed wish on the subject, was concerned at her own neglect; and "Shall I play to you now?" and "What will you have?" were questions immediately following with the readiest good-humour. ,"Another quarter of an hour," said Miss Crawford, "and we shall see how it will be. Do not run away the first moment of its holding up. Those clouds look alarming." ,"But they are passed over," said Fanny. "I have been watching them. This weather is all from the south." ,"South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it; and you must not set forward while it is so threatening. And besides, I want to play something more to you--a very pretty piece--and your cousin Edmund's prime favourite. You must stay and hear your cousin's favourite." ,Fanny felt that she must; and though she had not waited for that sentence to be thinking of Edmund, such a memento ¹⁹ made her particularly awake to his idea, and she fancied him sitting in that room again and again, perhaps in the very spot where she sat now, listening with constant delight to the favourite air, played, as it appeared to her, with superior tone and expression; and though pleased with it herself, and glad to like whatever was liked by him, she was more sincerely impatient to go away at the conclusion of it than she had been before; and on this being evident, she was so kindly ²⁰ asked to call again, to take them in her walk whenever she could, to come and hear more of the harp, that she felt it necessary to be done, if no objection arose at home. ,Such was the origin of the sort of intimacy ²¹ which took place between them within the first fortnight after the Miss Bertrams' going away--an intimacy resulting principally from Miss Crawford's desire of something new, and which had little reality in Fanny's feelings. Fanny went to her every two or three days: it seemed a kind of fascination ²²: she could not be easy without going, and yet it was without loving her, without ever thinking like her, without any sense of obligation for being sought after now when nobody else was to be had; and deriving ²³ no higher pleasure from her conversation than occasional amusement, and _that_ often at the expense of her judgment ²⁴, when it was raised by pleasantry on people or subjects which she wished to be respected. She went, however, and they sauntered about together many an half-hour in Mrs. Grant's shrubbery, the weather being unusually mild for the time of year, and venturing sometimes even to sit down on one of the benches now comparatively unsheltered, remaining there perhaps till, in the midst of some tender ejaculation of Fanny's on the sweets of so protracted ²⁵ an autumn, they were forced, by the sudden swell ²⁶ of a cold gust ²⁷ shaking down the last few yellow leaves about them, to jump up and walk for warmth. ,Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑 。,Such attitudes were not at all uncommon thirty years ago.这些看法在30年前很常见
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