雙語·面紗 第五十六章

56

Kitty was lying on her bed and the shutters were closed. It was after luncheon and the servants slept. What she had learnt that morning (and now she was certain that it was true) filled her with consternation. Ever since she came home she had been trying to think; but her mind was a blank, and she could not collect her thoughts. Suddenly she heard a step, the feet were booted so that it could not be one of the boys; with a gasp of apprehension she realised that it could only be her husband. He was in the sitting-room and she heard herself called. She did not reply. There was a moment's silence and then a knock on her door.

“Yes?”

“May I come in?”

Kitty rose from her bed and slipped into a dressing-gown.

“Yes.”

He entered. She was glad that the closed shutters shadowed her face.

“I hope I didn't wake you. I knocked very, very gently.”

“I haven't been asleep.”

He went to one of the windows and threw open the shutter. A flood of warm light streamed into the room.

“What is it?” she asked. “Why are you back so early?”

“The Sisters said that you weren't very well. I thought I had better come and see what was the matter.”

A flash of anger passed through her.

“What would you have said if it had been cholera?”

“If it had been you certainly couldn't have made your way home this morning.”

She went to the dressing-table and passed the comb through her shingled hair. She wanted to gain time. Then, sitting down, she lit a cigarette.

“I wasn't very well this morning and the Mother Superior thought I'd better come back here. But I'm perfectly all right again. I shall go to the convent as usual to-morrow.”

“What was the matter with you?”

“Didn't they tell you?”

“No. The Mother Superior said that you must tell me yourself.”

He did now what he did seldom; he looked her full in the face; his professional instincts were stronger than his personal. She hesitated. Then she forced herself to meet his eyes.

“I'm going to have a baby,” she said.

She was accustomed to his habit of meeting with silence a statement which you would naturally expect to evoke an exclamation, but never had it seemed to her more devastating. He said nothing; he made no gesture; no movement on his face nor change of expression in his dark eyes indicated that he had heard. She felt suddenly inclined to cry. If a man loved his wife and his wife loved him, at such a moment they were drawn together by a poignant emotion. The silence was intolerable and she broke it.

“I don't know why it never occurred to me before. It was stupid of me, but… what with one thing and another… ”

“How long have you… when do you expect to be confined?”

The words seemed to issue from his lips with difficulty. She felt that his throat was as dry as hers. It was a nuisance that her lips trembled so when she spoke; if he was not of stone it must excite his pity.

“I suppose I've been like this between two and three months.”

“Am I the father?”

She gave a little gasp. There was just a shadow of a tremor in his voice; it was dreadful that cold self-control of his which made the smallest token of emotion so shattering. She did not know why she thought suddenly of an instrument she had been shown in Hong Kong upon which a needle oscillated a little and she had been told that this represented an earthquake a thousand miles away in which perhaps a thousand persons had lost their lives. She looked at him. He was ghastly pale. She had seen that pallor on him once, twice before. He was looking down, a little sideways.

“Well?”

She clasped her hands. She knew that if she could say yes it would mean everything in the world to him. He would believe her, of course he would believe her, because he wanted to; and then he would forgive. She knew how deep was his tenderness and how ready he was, for all his shyness, to expend it. She knew that he was not vindictive; he would forgive her if she could but give him an excuse to, an excuse that touched his heart, and he would forgive completely. She could count on him never to throw the past in her teeth. Cruel he might be, cold and morbid, but he was neither mean nor petty. It would alter everything if she said yes.

And she had an urgent need for sympathy. The unexpected knowledge that she was with child had overwhelmed her with strange hopes and unforeseen desires. She felt weak, frightened a little, alone and very far from any friends. That morning, though she cared little for her mother, she had had a sudden craving to be with her. She needed help and consolation. She did not love Walter, she knew that she never could, but at this moment she longed with all her heart for him to take her in his arms so that she could lay her head on his breast; clinging to him she could have cried happily; she wanted him to kiss her and she wanted to twine her arms around his neck.

She began to weep. She had lied so much and she could lie so easily. What could a lie matter when it could only do good? A lie, a lie, what was a lie? It was so easy to say yes. She saw Walter's eyes melt and his arms outstretched towards her. She couldn't say it; she didn't know why, she just couldn't. All she had gone through during these bitter weeks, Charlie and his unkindness, the cholera and all these people dying, the nuns, oddly enough even that funny, drunken little Waddington, it all seemed to have changed her so that she did not know herself; though she was so deeply moved, some bystander in her soul seemed to watch her with terror and surprise. She had to tell the truth. It did not seem worth while to lie. Her thoughts wandered strangely: on a sudden she saw that dead beggar at the foot of the compound wall. Why should she think of him? She did not sob; the tears streamed down her face, quite easily, from wide eyes. At last she answered the question. He had asked her if he was the child's father.

“I don't know,” she said.

He gave the ghost of a chuckle. It made Kitty shudder.

“It's a bit awkward, isn't it?”

His answer was characteristic, it was exactly what she would have expected him to say, but it made her heart sink. She wondered if he realised how hard it had been for her to tell the truth (at the same moment she recognised that it had not been in the least hard, but inevitable)and if he gave her credit for it. Her answer, I don't know, I don't know, hammered away in her head. It was impossible now to take it back. She got her handkerchief from her bag and dried her eyes. They did not speak. There was a siphon on the table by her bed and he got her a glass of water. He brought it to her and held the glass while she drank. She noticed how thin his hand was, it was a fine hand, slender, with long fingers, but now it was nothing but skin and bone; it trembled a little: he could control his face, but his hand betrayed him.

“Don't mind my crying,” she said. “It's nothing really; it's only that I can't help the water running out of my eyes.”

She drank the water and he put the glass back. He sat down on a chair and lit a cigarette. He gave a little sigh. Once or twice before she had heard him sigh like that and it always gave her a catch at the heart. Looking at him now, for he was staring with abstracted gaze out of the window, she was surprised that she had not noticed before how terribly thin he had grown during the last weeks. His temples were sunken and the bones of his face showed through the skin. His clothes hung on him loosely as though they had been made for a larger man. Through his sunburn his face had a greenish pallor. He looked exhausted. He was working too hard, sleeping little and eating nothing. In her own grief and perturbation she found room to pity him. It was cruel to think that she could do nothing for him.

He put his hand over his forehead, as though his head were aching, and she had a feeling that in his brain too those words hammered madly: I don't know, I don't know. It was strange that this moody, cold and shy man should have such a natural affection for very little babies; most men didn't care much even for their own, but the nuns, touched and a little amused, had more than once spoken of it. If he felt like that about those funny little Chinese babies what would he have felt about his own? Kitty bit her lips in order to prevent herself from crying again.

He looked at his watch.

“I'm afraid I must go back to the city. I have a great deal to do to-day… Shall you be all right?”

“Oh, yes. Don't bother about me.”

“I think you'd better not wait for me this evening. I may be very late and I'll get something to eat from Colonel Yü.”

“Very well.”

He rose.

“If I were you, I wouldn't try to do anything to-day. You'd better take it easy. Is there anything you want before I go?”

“No, thanks. I shall be quite all right.”

He paused for an instant, as though he were undecided, and then, abruptly and without looking at her, took his hat and walked out of the room. She heard him go through the compound. She felt terribly alone. There was no need for self-restraint now and she gave herself up to a passion of tears.

第五十六章

凱蒂躺在床上，百葉窗已經(jīng)拉上。午飯過后，仆人們也去睡覺了。她滿腦子裝的都是今天早上知道的這個消息（現(xiàn)在她當然已經(jīng)確認這是真的），而且有些驚慌失措。從回到家里的那一刻起，她就一直想把思路捋清，但腦子始終是一片空白，無法集中注意力。突然，她聽到了一陣腳步聲，腳步聲是從皮靴上傳來的，所以不可能是仆人們的，當她意識到這腳步聲只可能會來自她丈夫，心頭立刻被恐懼攫住了。他在客廳里，她也聽見叫她的名字了，但她沒回答，沉寂了一會兒后，傳來了一陣敲門聲。

“誰呀？”

“我能進來嗎？”

凱蒂從床上坐起來，套上了晨衣。

“好的?！?/p>

他走進了她的臥室，她很慶幸緊關(guān)著的百葉窗能讓她的臉處在陰影中。

“希望沒吵醒你，我敲得非常輕?！?/p>

“我其實沒睡著。”

他走近其中一扇窗子，把百葉窗拉開了。溫暖的陽光如洪水般傾瀉進了房間。

“怎么回事？”她問道，“為什么今天你回來得這么早？”

“修女們說你病了，我想還是早點兒回來好，看看你怎么了。”

一陣怒氣穿過她的全身。

“如果說我染上了霍亂，你會怎么想？”

“如果真像你說的那樣，她們上午就不會把你送回來了。”

她走到梳妝臺前，用梳子攏了攏額前的劉海。她想爭取點兒時間，坐下來后，點著了一支香煙。

“我今天上午身體不太好，院長嬤嬤認為我最好回來休息，但是我現(xiàn)在完全好了。明天我會像往常一樣去修道院的?！?/p>

“你身體出什么狀況了？”

“她們沒告訴你嗎？”

“沒有，院長嬤嬤說必須由你自己告訴我。”

這時，他做了一件近來幾乎不怎么做的事，他端詳著她的臉。他職業(yè)的本能超過了個人的好惡。她猶豫了一下，然后迫使自己正視他的目光。

“我懷孕了?！彼f道。

她已經(jīng)習慣了他的做法，本來她指望能夠讓他大呼小叫的話他往往會用沉默對待，而現(xiàn)在他不這樣了，反而更讓她驚恐萬分。他什么也沒說，也沒做出任何手勢，臉色凝固了，黑色的眼睛沒有任何神情的改變表明他已經(jīng)聽見了她的話。她想要哭，如果一個男人愛他的妻子，而他的妻子也愛他的話，在這樣一個幸福的時刻，強烈的感情會讓他們的心貼得更近。沉默讓人難以忍受，她首先打破了它。

“我不知道為什么我以前沒有想到，我太笨了，但……近來一件事接著另一件事……”

“你這樣多長時間了……你的預(yù)產(chǎn)期是什么時候？”

這些話似乎很難說出口，她覺得他的喉嚨跟她的一樣干澀，她說話的時候嘴唇也是這樣顫抖，這讓她覺得很討厭。如果他不是鐵石心腸的話，這件事一定會激起他的同情。

“我想這樣有兩三個月了?！?/p>

“我是孩子的父親嗎？”

她倒吸了一口氣，隱約能感到他的聲音有一種震顫，他冷靜的自控力是挺可怕的，能抹去話語中最微不足道的感情變化的痕跡。她不知道為什么突然想到了在香港曾經(jīng)見到過的一種儀器，如果上面的針稍微擺動一下，就代表著一千英里遠的地方發(fā)生了地震，也許有一千人在地震中已經(jīng)失去了生命。她看著他，他的臉色煞白，以前她見過一兩次他的這種臉色。他低著頭，扭過臉去。

“嗯？”

她的雙手緊握，知道如果她給出肯定的答案，對他來說將擁有整個世界。他會相信她的話的，他當然會相信她，因為他希望是這樣的結(jié)果，那么接下來，他會原諒她的，她知道他有著無盡的柔情，也準備迸發(fā)出來，但由于羞怯，埋藏到了內(nèi)心深處。她知道他不是一個報復心很強的人，只要給他一個理由，他會原諒她的，如果能夠有一個借口觸動了他內(nèi)心最柔軟的部分，他會完完全全原諒她的，能夠指望他對過去既往不咎，閉口不提的。雖然他可能有些殘忍、冷酷和病態(tài)，但是他既不卑鄙也不小心眼兒。如果她說是的，一切都會改變。

而她現(xiàn)在急需別人的憐愛，當她得知自己懷孕的消息后，先是有些措手不及，然后開始有了奇怪的希望和莫名的憧憬。她覺得有點兒虛弱、害怕，自己孤身一人，遠離朋友。雖然她很少想到自己的母親，但今天上午突然渴望母親能在她的身邊，她太需要幫助和安慰了。她不愛沃爾特，知道自己絕不可能愛上他，但是今天上午她真心渴望他能把她攬入懷中，她能夠把頭枕在他的胸口，緊貼著他，她能幸福地大哭，她想讓他親吻她，也想用自己的胳膊摟著他的脖子。

她開始抽泣了，以前她的謊話說得太多了，所以現(xiàn)在可以張口就來。如果謊話對大家有好處，撒一個又何妨？謊話、謊話，什么是謊話？對沃爾特的問題說“是的”太容易了。她好像看見他冰冷的眼神融化了，他向她伸出了雙臂。但她不能那么說，也不知道什么原因，但她就是不能。在過去痛苦的幾周里，她經(jīng)歷了一切，查理的寡情薄義，霍亂和那些垂死的人，修女們，古靈精怪甚至有些滑稽、整天醉醺醺的小個子威廷頓，都似乎改變了她，以至于自己都認不出自己了。雖然她被深深地感動著，但靈魂深處的旁觀者似乎用一種驚恐和吃驚的神態(tài)在觀察著她。她必須得說真話，但可以說謊的時候，說真話似乎不值得。她的思想在做著奇怪的斗爭，突然，她好像見到了在院墻根上死去的那個乞丐，為什么她會想起他來呢？她沒有發(fā)出嗚咽聲，但從她的眼里，淚水輕易地噴涌而出。最后，她回答了那個問題，也就是他問她，他是否是她肚子里孩子的父親。

“我不知道?！彼f道。

他發(fā)出了像鬼哭一般咯咯的笑聲，讓凱蒂不寒而栗。

“有那么一點兒難為情，是吧？”

他的話帶有自己的特點，她也預(yù)料到了他會這么說，但是還是使得她的心沉了下去。她想知道他是否認識到對她來說道出實情是多么的難（同時，她也意識到說真話自己需要多么大的勇氣，但又不可避免），而且他是否相信她的話。她的回答“我不知道，我不知道”不停地在她的腦海中回響，現(xiàn)在不可能把它收回了。她從包里拿出了手絹擦干了眼淚。他們倆又都不說話了，她床邊的桌子上有一個虹吸水瓶，他給她到了一玻璃杯水，把水杯靠近她的嘴邊，而且在她喝水的時候一直端著水杯。她這才注意到他的手是多么的消瘦，本來這是一雙很有型的手，手指細長，但是現(xiàn)在只剩下皮包骨頭了。他拿杯子的手在微微顫抖，他能控制住面部表情，但他的手背叛了他。

“別介意我哭?！彼f道，“真的沒什么，只是我自己控制不住眼里的淚水要往下流?！?/p>

她喝完了水，他又把杯子放了回去，坐在椅子上，點著了一支香煙，輕輕地嘆了口氣。以前她聽見過他一兩次像這樣的嘆氣，總是會讓她的心揪著。現(xiàn)在再看他，眼睛出神地盯著窗外，她很吃驚，前一陣子沒有注意到在過去的幾周里，他憔悴消瘦得厲害，太陽穴已經(jīng)凹陷下去，臉上的顴骨也愈發(fā)突出，衣服穿在身上咣里咣當，好像是個頭比他大一號的人穿的。被太陽曬黑的臉透著瓜菜色的蒼白，看上去有些筋疲力盡。他工作得太辛苦了，睡眠很少，幾乎不吃什么東西。她難過和不安之余，還是有些心疼他。想想她從未為他做過什么，自己也覺得有些過分。

他把手放在前額上，頭痛欲裂，她也覺得在他的腦海中，這些詞匯也在不斷瘋狂地敲擊著：“我不知道，我不知道”。凱蒂覺得納悶，這個憂郁、冷淡和羞怯的男人對很小的嬰兒會有一種自然的感情流露，大多數(shù)的男人都不怎么在意嬰兒，哪怕是他們自己的孩子，而讓修女們既感動又覺得好玩的是，沃爾特對孩子的喜愛，她們不止一次說起過這一點。如果他對這些好笑的、弱小的中國孩子都那么喜愛的話，更何況他自己的親生骨肉呢？凱蒂緊咬著嘴唇，防止自己再哭出聲來。

他看了看手表。

“恐怕我必須趕回城里了，今天有很多的事情要做……你沒事了吧？”

“哦，是的，不用擔心我?！?/p>

“我想今天晚上你最好不用等我了，我可能會回來得很晚，我會去余上校那兒吃飯。”

“好的。”

他站起身來。

“如果我是你的話，今天什么活都不要干了。你最好放松些，在我走前，你還需要什么東西嗎？”

“不需要了，謝謝。我會很快好起來的?！?/p>

他停頓了一小會兒，好像還在猶豫著什么。隨后，他突然拿起帽子，一眼也沒看她，徑直走出了房間。她聽見他穿過院落的腳步聲，然后，自己再次陷入了可怕的孤獨之中。現(xiàn)在不用憋著了，她盡情地放聲大哭起來。