登陆注册
15293100000008

第8章

A spasm of pain crossed her husband's face. 'I wish I could feel it far away. After all, Ursula, it is the sacrifice of the young that gives people like us leisure and peace to think. Our duty is to do the best which is permitted to us, but that duty is a poor thing compared with what our young soldiers are giving! I may be quite wrong about the war ... I know I can't argue with Letchford. But I will not pretend to a superiority I do not feel.'

I went to bed feeling that in jimson I had struck a pretty sound fellow. As I lit the candles on my dressing-table I observed that the stack of silver which I had taken out of my pockets when I washed before supper was top-heavy. It had two big coins at the top and sixpences and shillings beneath. Now it is one of my oddities that ever since I was a small boy I have arranged my loose coins symmetrically, with the smallest uppermost. That made me observant and led me to notice a second point. The English classics on the top of the chest of drawers were not in the order I had left them.

Izaak Walton had got to the left of Sir Thomas Browne, and the poet Burns was wedged disconsolately between two volumes of Hazlitt. Moreover a receipted bill which I had stuck in the _Pilgrim's _Progress to mark my place had been moved. Someone had been going through my belongings.

A moment's reflection convinced me that it couldn't have been Mrs jimson. She had no servant and did the housework herself, but my things had been untouched when I left the room before supper, for she had come to tidy up before I had gone downstairs. Someone had been here while we were at supper, and had examined elaborately everything I possessed. Happily I had little luggage, and no papers save the new books and a bill or two in the name of Cornelius Brand- The inquisitor, whoever he was, had found nothing ... The incident gave me a good deal of comfort. It had been hard to believe that any mystery could exist in this public place, where people lived brazenly in the open, and wore their hearts on their sleeves and proclaimed their opinions from the rooftops. Yet mystery there must be, or an inoffensive stranger with a kit-bag would not have received these strange attentions. Imade a practice after that of sleeping with my watch below my pillow, for inside the case was Mary Lamington's label. Now began a period of pleasant idle receptiveness. Once a week it was my custom to go up to London for the day to receive letters and instructions, if any should come. I had moved from my chambers in Park Lane, which I leased under my proper name, to a small flat in Westminster taken in the name of Cornelius Brand. The letters addressed to Park Lane were forwarded to Sir Walter, who sent them round under cover to my new address. For the rest I used to spend my mornings reading in the garden, and I discovered for the first time what a pleasure was to be got from old books. They recalled and amplified that vision I had seen from the Cotswold ridge, the revelation of the priceless heritage which is England. Iimbibed a mighty quantity of history, but especially I liked the writers, like Walton, who got at the very heart of the English countryside. Soon, too, I found the _Pilgrim's _Progress not a duty but a delight. I discovered new jewels daily in the honest old story, and my letters to Peter began to be as full of it as Peter's own epistles. Iloved, also, the songs of the Elizabethans, for they reminded me of the girl who had sung to me in the June night.

In the afternoons I took my exercise in long tramps along the good dusty English roads. The country fell away from Biggleswick into a plain of wood and pasture-land, with low hills on the horizon.

The Place was sown with villages, each with its green and pond and ancient church. Most, too, had inns, and there I had many a draught of cool nutty ale, for the inn at Biggleswick was a reformed place which sold nothing but washy cider. Often, tramping home in the dusk, I was so much in love with the land that I could have sung with the pure joy of it. And in the evening, after a bath, there would be supper, when a rather fagged jimson struggled between sleep and hunger, and the lady, with an artistic mutch on her untidy head, talked ruthlessly of culture.

Bit by bit I edged my way into local society. The Jimsons were a great help, for they were popular and had a nodding acquaintance with most of the inhabitants. They regarded me as a meritorious aspirant towards a higher life, and I was paraded before their friends with the suggestion of a vivid, if Philistine, past. If I had any gift for writing, I would make a book about the inhabitants of Biggleswick. About half were respectable citizens who came there for country air and low rates, but even these had a touch of queerness and had picked up the jargon of the place. The younger men were mostly Government clerks or writers or artists. There were a few widows with flocks of daughters, and on the outskirts were several bigger houses - mostly houses which had been there before the garden city was planted. One of them was brand-new, a staring villa with sham-antique timbering, stuck on the top of a hill among raw gardens. It belonged to a man called Moxon Ivery, who was a kind of academic pacificist and a great god in the place.

Another, a quiet Georgian manor house, was owned by a London publisher, an ardent Liberal whose particular branch of business compelled him to keep in touch with the new movements. I used to see him hurrying to the station swinging a little black bag and returning at night with the fish for dinner.

I soon got to know a surprising lot of people, and they were the rummiest birds you can imagine. For example, there were the Weekeses, three girls who lived with their mother in a house so artistic that you broke your head whichever way you turned in it.

The son of the family was a conscientious objector who had refused to do any sort of work whatever, and had got quodded for his pains. They were immensely proud of him and used to relate his sufferings in Dartmoor with a gusto which I thought rather heartless.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 圣翼天骄

    圣翼天骄

    六个少年,命运的交织,这将注定是一个非同寻常的故事。“为什么?为什么一定要这样?”少女幽怨的声音在月下显得无比响亮。“你们快走,现在还来得及!”少年的话使大家忧伤。救赎,还来得及么?最后一战巅峰!
  • 浩世剑仙

    浩世剑仙

    一个普普通通的学生,默默无闻。却无意中穿越到一个异次元时空。来自现代的头脑,能否适应这个时代?
  • 全家都能用的老偏方:一个老中医的坐诊实录

    全家都能用的老偏方:一个老中医的坐诊实录

    本书是一位知名老中医的坐诊实录,收集了老中医40余年来的诊断中医偏方,这些偏方经过无数患者验证,行之有效,可以说面面俱到,非常适合家用。也许伴随你多年的皮肤问题,经过几样简单的食材,即可轻松化解;也许伴随你父母多年的老顽疾经过几副中药的调理,即可治愈;也许,你的孩子感冒、发烧,书中几个简单的小偏方,你随意选一个即可巧妙地化解……一本超实用,最简单,行之有效的偏方书籍。一本书,一个中医院到自家门口。
  • 清明上河图秘史

    清明上河图秘史

    北宋画家张择端不仅画了《清明上河图》长卷,而且在图中还隐藏着许多鲜为人知的有趣故事,这些故事在张择端给学生们讲述时,被学生们忠实地记录了下来,下面赵太丞家的故事便是其中之一。《清明上河图秘史》初稿已完成,在初稿的基础上便修改便上传,现已上传约近六万字,考虑到整体结构、人物与情节等方面需要较大的修改,故决定暂停上传,请读者们见谅!待修改完毕后继续上传!
  • 寒门飞雪

    寒门飞雪

    当人性趋向邪恶,妖魔便乘机而生。当群魔现世、妖君降临,人类能否警醒?十二把灵器同时现世,又将掀起怎样的血雨腥风?一个新人类时代的崛起,能否改变世界的格局,请欣赏《寒门飞雪》。
  • 剑弑虚空

    剑弑虚空

    少年鱼凡,为了他的家人,备受压迫,实力决定一切,他毅然走上了漫漫修行之路,而神秘复杂,危险重重的大千世界,也渐渐展现在这坚毅少年的面前…
  • 火纹同人之胖子的后花园

    火纹同人之胖子的后花园

    穿越烈火之剑的世界,身为历史军事游戏宅的胖子开始了在这个火纹世界挣扎求存、勾搭妹子。胖子:穿越不开后花园那和咸鱼有什么区别,但是咱们要走纯情流,避免鬼畜柴刀。(新人新作,先来个喜欢的火纹练练手,不喜可以喷,但是请轻点!
  • 超级轮盘

    超级轮盘

    遭受女友的背叛,和亲人的离弃,朋友的离开,命运的折磨,林仁又该这样呢……“嘀嘀嘀,认主成功。嘀嘀嘀,能源不足,是否借用宿主寿命来补充能源……
  • 四十五度仰望星空

    四十五度仰望星空

    警校生,梦想是当一名人民警察,却因为家庭的变故,改变了女主一生的命运,最终,她能否完成自己所谓的信仰?
  • 十二美男与可爱的她

    十二美男与可爱的她

    一个富家女孩(夏若晴)去往韩国,来到父亲的朋友的孩子家里,十二个高颜值高情商的少爷们(EXO)发生了不同的小故事