THE FROZEN DEEP(冰渊)

VIP免费

2024-12-25 0 0 291.42KB 85 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

THE FROZEN DEEP

by Wilkie Collins

THE FROZEN DEEP

First Scene

The Ball-room

Chapter 1.

The date is between twenty and thirty years ago. The place is an

English sea-port. The time is night. And the business of the moment is--

dancing.

The Mayor and Corporation of the town are giving a grand ball, in

celebration of the departure of an Arctic expedition from their port. The

ships of the expedition are two in number--the _Wanderer_ and the _Sea-

mew_. They are to sail (in search of the Northwest Passage) on the next

day, with the morning tide.

Honor to the Mayor and Corporation! It is a brilliant ball. The band is

complete. The room is spacious. The large conservatory opening out of it

is pleasantly lighted with Chinese lanterns, and beautifully decorated with

shrubs and flowers. All officers of the army and navy who are present

wear their uniforms in honor of the occasion. Among the ladies, the

display of dresses (a subject which the men don't understand) is

bewildering--and the average of beauty (a subject which the men do

understand) is the highest average attainable, in all parts of the room.

For the moment, the dance which is in progress is a quadrille. General

admiration selects two of the ladies who are dancing as its favorite objects.

One is a dark beauty in the prime of womanhood--the wife of First

Lieutenant Crayford, of the _Wanderer_. The other is a young girl, pale

and delicate; dressed simply in white; with no ornament on her head but

her own lovely brown hair. This is Miss Clara Burnham--an orphan. She is

Mrs. Crayford's dearest friend, and she is to stay with Mrs. Crayford

during the lieutenant's absence in the Arctic regions. She is now dancing,

THE FROZEN DEEP

with the lieutenant himself for partner, and with Mrs. Crayford and

Captain Helding (commanding officer of the _Wanderer_) for vis-a-vis--in

plain English, for opposite couple.

The conversation between Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford, in one

of the intervals of the dance, turns on Miss Burnham. The captain is

greatly interested in Clara. He admires her beauty; but he thinks her

manner--for a young girl--strangely serious and subdued. Is she in delicate

health?

Mrs. Crayford shakes her head; sighs mysteriously; and answers,

"In _very_ delicate health, Captain Helding."

"Consumptive?"

"Not in the least."

"I am glad to hear that. She is a charming creature, Mrs. Crayford. She

interests me indescribably. If I was only twenty years younger--perhaps (as

I am not twenty years younger) I had better not finish the sentence? Is it

indiscreet, my dear lady, to inquire what _is_ the matter with her?"

"It might be indiscreet, on the part of a stranger," said Mrs. Crayford.

"An old friend like you may make any inquiries. I wish I could tell you

what is the matter with Clara. It is a mystery to the doctors themselves.

Some of the mischief is due, in my humble opinion, to the manner in

which she has been brought up."

"Ay! ay! A bad school, I suppose."

"Very bad, Captain Helding. But not the sort of school which you have

in your mind at this moment. Clara's early years were spent in a lonely old

house in the Highlands of Scotland. The ignorant people about her were

the people who did the mischief which I have just been speaking of. They

filled her mind with the superstitions which are still respected as truths in

the wild North--especially the superstition called the Second Sight."

"God bless me!" cried the captain, "you don't mean to say she believes

in such stuff as that? In these enlightened times too!"

Mrs. Crayford looked at her partner with a satirical smile.

"In these enlightened times, Captain Helding, we only believe in

dancing tables, and in messages sent from the other world by spirits who

THE FROZEN DEEP

can't spell! By comparison with such superstitions as these, even the

Second Sight has something--in the shape of poetry--to recommend it,

surely? Estimate for yourself," she continued seriously, "the effect of such

surroundings as I have described on a delicate, sensitive young creature--a

girl with a naturally imaginative temperament leading a lonely, neglected

life. Is it so very surprising that she should catch the infection of the

superstition about her? And is it quite incomprehensible that her nervous

system should suffer accordingly, at a very critical period of her life?"

"Not at all, Mrs. Crayford--not at all, ma'am, as you put it. Still it is a little

startling, to a commonplace man like me, to meet a young lady at a ball

who believes in the Second Sight. Does she really profess to see into the

future? Am I to understand that she positively falls into a trance, and sees

people in distant countries, and foretells events to come? That is the

Second Sight, is it not?"

"That is the Second Sight, captain. And that is, really and positively,

what she does."

"The young lady who is dancing opposite to us?"

"The young lady who is dancing opposite to us."

The captain waited a little--letting the new flood of information which

had poured in on him settle itself steadily in his mind. This process

accomplished, the Arctic explorer proceeded resolutely on his way to

further discoveries.

"May I ask, ma'am, if you have ever seen her in a state of trance with

your own eyes?" he inquired.

"My sister and I both saw her in the trance, little more than a month

since," Mrs. Crayford replied. "She had been nervous and irritable all the

morning; and we took her out into the garden to breathe the fresh air.

Suddenly, without any reason for it, the color left her face. She stood

between us, insensible to touch, insensible to sound; motionless as stone,

and cold as death in a moment. The first change we noticed came after a

lapse of some minutes. Her hands began to move slowly, as if she was

groping in the dark. Words dropped one by one from her lips, in a lost,

vacant tone, as if she was talking in her sleep. Whether what she said

THE FROZEN DEEP

referred to past or future I cannot tell you. She spoke of persons in a

foreign country--perfect strangers to my sister and to me. After a little

interval, she suddenly became silent. A momentary color appeared in her

face, and left it again. Her eyes closed--her feet failed her--and she sank

insensible into our arms."

"Sank insensible into your arms," repeated the captain, absorbing his

new information. "Most extraordinary! And--in this state of health--she

goes out to parties, and dances. More extraordinary still!"

"You are entirely mistaken," said Mrs. Crayford. "She is only here to-

night to please me; and she is only dancing to please my husband. As a

rule, she shuns all society. The doctor recommends change and amusement

for her. She won't listen to him. Except on rare occasions like this, she

persists in remaining at home."

Captain Helding brightened at the allusion to the doctor. Something

practical might be got out of the doctor. Scientific man. Sure to see this

very obscure subject under a new light. "How does it strike the doctor

now?" said the captain. "Viewed simply as a Case, ma'am, how does it

strike the doctor?"

"He will give no positive opinion," Mrs. Crayford answered. "He told

me that such cases as Clara's were by no means unfamiliar to medical

practice. 'We know,' he told me, 'that certain disordered conditions of the

brain and the nervous system produce results quite as extraordinary as any

that you have described--and there our knowledge ends. Neither my

science nor any man's science can clear up the mystery in this case. It is an

especially difficult case to deal with, because Miss Burnham's early

associations dispose her to attach a superstitious importance to the

malady--the hysterical malady as some doctors would call it--from which

she suffers. I can give you instructions for preserving her general health;

and I can recommend you to try some change in her life--provided you

first relieve her mind of any secret anxieties that may possibly be preying

on it.'"

The captain smiled self-approvingly. The doctor had justified his

anticipations. The doctor had suggested a practical solution of the

THE FROZEN DEEP

difficulty.

"Ay! ay! At last we have hit the nail on the h ead! Secret anxieties. Yes!

yes! Plain enough now. A disappointment in love--eh, Mrs. Crayford?"

"I don't know, Captain Helding; I am quite in the dark. Clara's

confidence in me--in other matters unbounded--is, in this matter of her

(supposed) anxieties, a confidence still withheld. In all else we are like

sisters. I sometimes fear there may indeed be some trouble preying

secretly on her mind. I sometimes feel a little hurt at her incomprehensible

silence."

Captain Helding was ready with his own practical remedy for this

difficulty.

"Encouragement is all she wants, ma'am. Take my word for it, this

matter rests entirely with you. It's all in a nutshell. Encourage her to

confide in you--and she _will_ confide."

"I am waiting to encourage her, captain, until she is left alone with me-

-after you have all sailed for the Arctic seas. In the meantime, will you

consider what I have said to you as intended for your ear only? And will

you forgive me, if I own that the turn the subject has taken does not tempt

me to pursue it any further?"

The captain took the hint. He instantly changed the subject; choosing,

on this occasion, safe professional topics. He spoke of ships that were

ordered on foreign service; and, finding that these as subjects failed to

interest Mrs. Crayford, he spoke next of ships that were ordered home

again. This last experiment produced its effect--an effect which the captain

had not bargained for.

"Do you know," he began, "that the _Atalanta_ is expected back from

the West Coast of Africa every day? Have you any acquaintances among

the officers of that ship?"

As it so happened, he put those questions to Mrs. Crayford while they

were engaged in one of the figures of the dance which brought them

within hearing of the opposite couple. At the same moment--to the

astonishment of her friends and admirers--Miss Clara Burnham threw the

quadrille into confusion by making a mistake! Everybody waited to see

THE FROZEN DEEP

her set the mistake right. She made no attempt to set it right--she turned

deadly pale and caught her partner by the arm.

"The heat!" she said, faintly. "Take me away--take me into the air!"

Lieutenant Crayford instantly led her out of the dance, and took her

into the cool and empty conservatory, at the end of the room. As a matter

of course, Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford left the quadrille at the

same time. The captain saw his way to a joke.

"Is this the trance coming on?" he whispered. "If it is, as commander

of the Arctic expedition, I have a particular request to make. Will the

Second Sight oblige me by seeing the shortest way to the Northwest

Passage, before we leave England?"

Mrs. Crayford declined to humor the joke. "If you will excuse my

leaving you," she said quietly, "I will try and find out what is the matter

with Miss Burnham."

At the entrance to the conservatory, Mrs. Crayford encountered her

husband. The lieutenant was of middle age, tall and comely. A man with a

winning simplicity and gentleness in his manner, and an irresistible

kindness in his brave blue eyes. In one word, a man whom everybody

loved--including his wife.

"Don't be alarmed," said the lieutenant. "The heat has overcome her--

that's all."

Mrs. Crayford shook her head, and looked at her husband, half

satirically, half fondly.

"You dear old innocent!" she exclaimed, "that excuse may do for

_you_. For my part, I don't believe a word of it. Go and get another

partner, and leave Clara to me."

She entered the conservatory and seated herself by Clara's side.

Chapter 2.

"Now, my dear!" Mrs. Crayford began, "what does this mean?"

"Nothing."

THE FROZEN DEEP

"That won't do, Clara. Try again."

"The heat of the room--"

"That won't do, either. Say that you choose to keep your own secrets,

and I shall understand what you mean."

Clara's sad, clear gray eyes looked up for the first time in Mrs.

Crayford's face, and suddenly became dimmed with tears.

"If I only dared tell you!" she murmured. "I hold so to your good

opinion of me, Lucy--and I am so afraid of losing it."

Mrs. Crayford's manner changed. Her eyes rested gravely and

anxiously on Clara's face.

"You know as well as I do that nothing can shake my affection for

you," she said. "Do justice, my child, to your old friend. There is nobody

here to listen to what we say. Open your heart, Clara. I see you are in

trouble, and I want to comfort you."

Clara began to yield. In other words, she began to make conditions.

"Will you promise to keep what I tell you a secret from every living

creature?" she began.

Mrs. Crayford met that question, by putting a question on her side.

"Does 'every living creature' include my husband?"

"Your husband more than anybody! I love him, I revere him. He is so

noble; he is so good! If I told him what I am going to tell you, he would

despise me. Own it plainly, Lucy, if I am asking too much in asking you to

keep a secret from your husband."

"Nonsense, child! When you are married, you will know that the

easiest of all secrets to keep is a secret from your husband. I give you my

promise. Now begin!"

Clara hesitated painfully.

"I don't know how to begin!" she exclaimed, with a burst of despair.

"The words won't come to me."

"Then I must help you. Do you feel ill tonight? Do you feel as you felt

that day when you were with my sister and me in the garden?"

"Oh no."

"You are not ill, you are not really affected by the heat--and yet you

THE FROZEN DEEP

turn as pale as ashes, and you are obliged to leave the quadrille! There

must be some reason for this."

"There is a reason. Captain Helding--"

"Captain Helding! What in the name of wonder has the captain to do

with it?"

"He told you something about the _Atalanta_. He said the _Atalanta_

was expected back from Africa immediately."

"Well, and what of that? Is there anybody in whom you are interested

coming home in the ship?"

"Somebody whom I am afraid of is coming home in the ship."

Mrs. Crayford's magnificent black eyes opened wide in amazement.

"My dear Clara! do you really mean what you say?"

"Wait a little, Lucy, and you shall judge for yourself. We must go

back--if I am to make you understand me--to the year before we knew

each other--to the last year of my father's life. Did I ever tell you that my

father moved southward, for the sake of his health, to a house in Kent that

was lent to him by a friend?"

"No, my dear; I don't remember ever hearing of the house in Kent. Tell

me about it."

"There is nothing to tell, except this: the new house was near a fine

country-seat standing in its own park. The owner of the place was a

gentleman named Wardour. He, too, was one of my father's Kentish

friends. He had an only son."

She paused, and played nervously with her fan. Mrs. Crayford looked

at her attentively. Clara's eyes remained fixed on her fan--Clara said no

more. "What was the son's name?" asked Mrs. Crayford, quietly.

"Richard."

"Am I right, Clara, in suspecting that Mr. Richard Wardour admired

you?"

The question produced its intended effect. The question helped Clara

to go on.

"I hardly knew at first," she said, "whether he admired me or not. He

was very strange in his ways--headstrong, terribly headstrong and

THE FROZEN DEEP

passionate; but generous and affectionate in spite of his faults of temper.

Can you understand such a character?"

"Such characters exist by thousands. I have my faults of temper. I

begin to like Richard already. Go on."

"The days went by, Lucy, and the weeks went by. We were thrown

very much together. I began, little by little, to have some suspicion of the

truth."

"And Richard helped to confirm your suspicions, of course?

"No. He was not--unhappily for me--he was not that sort of man. He

never spoke of the feeling with which he regarded me. It was I who saw it.

I couldn't help seeing it. I did all I could to show that I was willing to be a

sister to him, and that I could never be anything else. He did not

understand me, or he would not, I can't say which."

"'Would not,' is the most likely, my dear. Go on."

"It might have been as you say. There was a strange, rough bashfulness

about him. He confused and puzzled me. He never spoke out. He seemed

to treat me as if our future lives had been provided for while we were

children. What could I do, Lucy?"

"Do? You could have asked your father to end the difficulty for you."

"Impossible! You forget what I have just told you. My father was

suffering at that time under the illness which afterward caused his death.

He was quite unfit to interfere."

"Was there no one else who could help you?"

"No one."

"No lady in whom you could confide?"

"I had acquaintances among the ladies in the neighborhood. I had no

friends."

"What did you do, then?"

"Nothing. I hesitated; I put off coming to an explanation with him,

unfortunately, until it was too late."

"What do you mean by too late?"

"You shall hear. I ought to have told you that Richard Wardour is in the

navy--"

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

THEFROZENDEEP1THEFROZENDEEPbyWilkieCollinsTHEFROZENDEEP2FirstSceneTheBall-roomChapter1.Thedateisbetweentwentyandthirtyyearsago.TheplaceisanEnglishsea-port.Thetimeisnight.Andthebusinessofthemomentis--dancing.TheMayorandCorporationofthetownaregivingagrandball,incelebrationofthedepartureofanArcticexped...

展开>> 收起<<

THE FROZEN DEEP(冰渊).pdf

共85页,预览17页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

THE FROZEN DEEP(冰渊)

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: