Love England

Chapter 13

Tears are not enough to express the pain and struggle in my heart. This is the ending I had already thought of, but there is still a glimmer of expectation in my subconscious, and now this expectation has disappeared with the departure of Mr. Thornton. It's just wishful thinking, and it's God's due punishment for my delusion to replace Margaret.After learning the truth, Mr. Thornton fled in such a hurry that he even left his gloves on the cabinet in the living room and forgot to take them away, just like a person who is afraid to run away after seeing a monster.I picked up his gloves and held them like a pair of treasures in my hands. This may be the last sustenance of my feelings for him, and the two of us may never have anything to do with each other again.I buried my face in the glove, as if I could smell his breath, and this made me cry uncontrollably.I couldn't cry because I was afraid that Dixon would hear me and come downstairs and ask me what happened, and I was afraid of being caught by Mr. Hale who was going to the doctor and bewildered. Treat this setback as I have experienced countless emotional setbacks, and silently tell myself to be strong, brave, and love myself more, because no one in this world can fully accept true love. love me, except myself.

I wiped away my tears as best I could, put the unpleasantness behind me, and forced myself to pull myself together, because I had heard a knock on the door downstairs—Mr. Hale must have asked Dr. Donaldson to come back.I stood up tremblingly, and hurriedly hid the pair of gloves in my pocket. It was as if someone had dug a hole in my heart, and I stumbled and ran downstairs to open the door due to lack of focus.Before opening the door, I took a few deep breaths so I wouldn't look sluggish.When I opened the door, besides Mr. Hale and Dr. Donaldson, Mr. Bell appeared at the door.

After a brief exchange of greetings, Mr. Hale took the doctor to see Mrs. Hale, while Mr. Bell stayed downstairs. He glanced at me and asked softly: "My little girl, your complexion is not good, your health Not feeling well? I don't want you falling ill with Mrs. Hale."

"I... I'm fine, Mr. Bell, I just feel a little tired all of a sudden."

"I think you'd better ask Dixon to pour you a cup of tea. There's been so much going on lately!"

"No, thank you, don't bother Dixon! Mrs. Hale needs her service, I don't want to bother her, and I don't want to drink tea, I might just sit down and have a rest!" Mr. Bell looked at me and sighed He said in a low voice: "Okay, little Cali! Come take my arm, let's sit on the sofa." I followed Mr. Bell's advice, and I appreciate his thoughtfulness, because now I really don't want to be alone Cranky, I need someone to talk to to distract me.

"I got the news that the strike was over, and there was news of a worker's rape, so I wanted to see how old Hale was doing. I was relieved to see that you were all fine! By the way, Mr. Hale and I were still there when we came back just now. I met Mr. Thornton on the street. His expression was not as calm as usual, and he seemed a little absent-minded. He greeted us briefly and left. It seems that he was too busy after the strike! We are near here Met him, as if he had visited here before." I could not help trembling at the mention of Mr. Thornton's name, and although Mr. Bell had no intention of mentioning that person, I still did not want to When I heard Mr. Thornton's name from my mouth, I changed the topic and said, "Everyone's life seems to have changed after the strike—Mr. Bell, did you meet Mr. Hale on the way here?"

"Yes, it was a coincidence that when I came here from the hotel where I was staying, I met Hale to fetch Dr. Donaldson, so I simply followed him and followed him back—Mrs. Hale is also thanks to your care Well, old Hale is not so worried, Dr. Donaldson is also my old acquaintance, he also praised you as a very good nurse, I think even if my goddaughter Margaret is here, you may not be able to do it Well done. Thank you so much, Cali!" Mr. Bell said and shook my hand in thanks.

"I think that's what I should do. Margaret is my friend, and that's all I can do for her here. I really hope Mrs. Hale gets better soon and doesn't have to go far." Margaret in a foreign land is worried!" I just said this, Mr. Hale accompanied Dr. Donaldson to the living room, Dr. Donaldson looked sad, and Mr. Hale also felt the doctor's worry.Mr. Bell and I stood up, hoping that the doctor could give you an explanation.

"I received the consultation report from London this morning. I checked Mrs. Hale again just now. The current situation is not optimistic-I don't want to hide it from you. Mrs. Hale has a relatively rare hernia. Now The conventional drug treatment method is not effective at all." Dr. Donaldson said with a serious expression, and as soon as I heard the word "doesn't work", I found that Mr. Hale's face turned pale immediately, and his expression lost its color. , like a man turned into wood by magic.Mr. Bell also saw the changes in his old friend, and quickly asked Dr. Donaldson if he had any other treatment methods, hoping to get a hope from the doctor to cheer up his friend.

"With the current medical technology, there is no reliable treatment for this type of hernia, unless it is surgery-but the risk of surgery is too great, and the chance of success is too small. I am really sorry!" said the doctor. Wan shook his head.

"What shall we do now?" Mr. Hale finally spoke, but his voice seemed to come from the abyss. "Patients need to pay attention to their diet and eat more fresh fruits. I will prescribe some medicine to relieve the patient's symptoms. I will come again in the near future." Dr. Donaldson patted Mr. Hale on the shoulder to express his understanding and sympathy. Mr. Bell I also shook his hand gratefully, and I volunteered to see the doctor out because I wanted to know more about Mrs. Hale.

Dr. Donaldson is a gray-haired old gentleman who always treats people with kindness and enthusiasm. After hearing my inquiry, he said: "My explanation just now is the current situation of Mrs. Hale. It is really not good to open the mouth with the current medical level. Maturity, I'm not [-]% sure to do this operation, it will make Mrs Hale die on the operating table."

"Doctor, can I see Mrs. Hale's consultation report and her detailed medical records?" Dr. Donaldson looked surprised when he heard my request, "Miss, this is the first time I have heard such a request."

"To tell you the truth, Dr. Donaldson, I was a nurse in the US military. I have not only received very professional training as a nurse, but also a very professional medical study. I have assisted many doctors in the treatment of various types of hernias. More than thirty operations have been performed, and each operation has been successful, so I want to help Mrs. Hale, help you!" Dr. Donaldson opened his eyes wide and looked at me as if he saw a rare object, doubt and surprise intertwined Confident expression on his face, "Thank you for telling me this, Miss Addams! I will show you Mrs. Hale's consultation report, but I need to think about the operation. You can come to my clinic tomorrow. That's it!" Doctor Donaldson saluted slightly as farewell, and I curtseyed back, and then the doctor walked along New Street.

When I returned to the house and saw Mr. Bell comforting Mr. Hale, I went upstairs to see how Mrs. Hale was doing, while Dixon was feeding Mrs. Hale water.As soon as she saw me coming in, Mrs. Hale stretched out her hand to me. I went to her bed and took her hand. The weakness and weakness also made me feel the same with the touch of my hand. The only comforting thing was her The spirit is not bad. "Dr. Donaldson said you should eat more fresh fruit. I think I'll sell some later. You'll be all right."

Mrs. Hale nodded and said: "I'm just worried about Mr. Hale, he will be scared by the doctor. Dixon doesn't have to feed me any more water, and it's time to prepare lunch for Mr. Hale and Mr. Bell—fortunately there is Mr. Bell can take care of Mr. Hale, otherwise he will always worry about me if no one is with him." Dixon nodded and went downstairs in accordance with her mistress's wishes, now only me and Mrs. Hale together.Looking at the haggard Mrs. Hale, my own personal emotional problems seemed unworthy of mentioning. To cheer up Mrs. Hale, I said: "Mrs. Hale, I have something to tell you, although I know I'm going to be a bit self-assertive doing this, but I feel like I should!"

"What's the matter, my child?" Her expression was not reproachful.

"A few weeks ago, I wrote to Mr. Frederick Hale, hoping that he would come home to visit you soon. I know you have always wanted to see him." Hearing this news, Mrs. Hale There was a sudden light in her eyes, and she held my hand tightly and said excitedly: "Cali my child, how can I blame you? My Frederick is coming back! Ah, my son is coming back It's—but..." Suddenly she was sad again, and I knew she was worried about Frederick's danger if he returned to England.

"I think it's been so long, and almost no one knows us in Milton. If he comes back, as long as he hides at home, there will be no problem!"

"You're right, yes, that's what we're going to do! Oh, I'm so happy to hear the news, I hope he can come back soon!" Mrs. Hale was so happy, and Dixon's reappearance made Hale Madame can spread her joy.

"Ma'am, it's very good! Master Frederick is coming!" Then Dixon said to me, "Ah! I'm so happy I almost forgot—Miss Addams, I wanted to come up and tell you Mary was coming." I asked her to wait in the kitchen. She hoped that you could go home with her to see her sister and father. She said that their house was in a mess now. She didn’t know what to do. I can ask you to help me. This poor girl!" Mrs. Hale said sympathetically, "Cali, you go! Mary's sister is also sick, and his father must be having a hard time after a strike. I can imagine her family's situation now."

I nodded, and left Mrs. Hale's bedroom. When I went downstairs and passed the living room, I saw Mr. Bell holding Mr. Hale's hand and saying comforting words to him. I didn't disturb them and went straight to the kitchen. Mary was waiting There.

"Sister Cali, help me!"

"I see, Dixon told me just now, let's go now!" I took Mary's hand, and the two of us headed towards the worker's residential area at the fastest speed. After 10 minutes, Mary and I met came to the door of her house.Before we even got through the door, we heard a man say angrily: "Hiding you? You have the guts to bring up such a thing! You stoned a lady, you broke a strike!"

"You said you would help me!" said another male voice with a trembling voice, which sounded so reluctant, followed by the sound of impact and the sound of the chair being overturned.

"No, don't be like this father, fighting won't solve the problem!" A female voice weakly persuaded, followed by a violent cough, as if she was going to cough forever, and even the listeners could feel her great pain.

"Sister Cali!" Mary held my hand tightly and looked at me with frightened eyes, hoping for my help.

"Don't worry, you wait here for a while!" I hugged the girl who was already trembling with fright, and then opened the door and walked into Higgins' house.As a sudden intruder, all six eyes in the house fell on me.

"Cali! You're here!" Bessie came to me quickly and gave me a hug. She even forgot to cough, while Mr. Higgins stood there without saying a word, letting go The collar of another person, the one caught by the collar was Boucher, who seemed to recognize me too, and turned his face away in shame.

"Bessie, I've been busy with Hale's affairs these days and haven't come to see you. I'm so sorry!"

"It's okay, I'm glad you can come! My father is also very happy to see you!"

"Sorry, Cali, I let you see this scene!" Mr. Higgins said as he put the overturned chair on the ground, wiped the surface of the chair with his sleeve, and moved it over for me to sit on.And I gave up the chair to Bessie, walked between Mr. Boucher and Mr. Higgins, and said: "Nicholas, the strike is over. As far as I know, the factory owners will not hold people who participated in the riots. What about arguing?"

"I think you've heard, too, that a woman was beaten half to death when the workers went to Thornton's - God! A woman was hit! Although now I know that the factory owners will not pursue it, but the beating We are the right side, but because of this violence, everything is different! The factory owners will still think we are a bunch of uneducated beasts!" Higgins said, staring at the people behind me. Butcher said.

"The strike failed the moment we went to the Thornton factory!" Boucher couldn't help whispering the truth, but the weight of the sentence was so heavy, it was like a fist hitting Higgins On his face, he felt heartbroken.Higgins fell into an eerie silence, and I knew he was blaming himself for not being able to stop the workers from going to the factory.

"When is this going to end?" Boucher continued in that desperate voice. "Of course you don't really care. My wife and children are starving every day!"

"I will take care of you! I promised you that I will keep my promise! But you failed to keep your promise, and your behavior has discredited the union! As a union member, I cannot tolerate your behavior!" At this moment, Boucher Weeping softly, "My God! You are so pathetic!" Higgins looked at him with disgust, "You will only drag everyone, your family and the entire union down..."

"That's enough, Nicholas!" I reprimanded him loudly, I ignored his surprise at my losing my temper, turned around and said to Boucher who was crouching in the corner and almost collapsed: "Sir, you don't have to hide, Mr. Thornton and I have stopped holding you accountable, and the police will not continue to pursue you. You can go home in peace. I forgive you from the bottom of my heart! Your wife and your children are still alive The family is waiting for you to come back, they need you, and you should pick yourself up. Now that the strike is over, everything is over, all you need is to pick yourself up and go back to work."

After listening to my words, Boucher finally raised his head and looked at me. He knelt on the ground, took my hand and cried excitedly, and said, "I'm sorry, miss! It's all my fault! I hit you on the spur of the moment! It was my fault! Sorry!"

I quickly pulled him up, and I was relieved, thinking that the fate of Boucher's suicide in the novel might be reversed at this moment, and I was more happy than him.I shook hands with him sincerely, and he looked at me with tears in his eyes, and then at Higgins behind me with a complicated expression, leaving here and going home.

Bessie ran over to hug me as soon as Boucher left, and asked with concern: "So the woman who was beaten was you, my God! Cali, are you okay!"

"I'm all right, I'm all right! By the way, Bessie! I think you should call Mary in and tell her that she's all right. She was too frightened to come in when she heard what was going on in the room just now! "

"Okay! You have to tell me about the matter in a while!" Bessie smiled, and the morbid sadness seemed to have faded a little bit. She hummed a tune and went out to find her sister.

"Are... are you really okay now? Is that woman who was beaten to death really you?" Higgins said to me when he saw Bessie go out.I turned my head to look at him, he seemed to be more tired than the last time we met, and there was a certain guilt on his face.To reassure him, I smiled and said, "Didn't you see me standing in front of you alive and kicking? I'm not a half-dead woman!"

"If I could have stopped them then, you wouldn't have been hurt! Maybe half of what I said to Boucher angrily was annoyed at my own incompetence!"

"It's all over, Nicholas! I don't blame you at all. Everyone should move on. I have forgiven Boucher, and you should forgive him. He was your friend, so you have the right to him." promise, you should be reconciled."

"He hit you, and I don't know if I can forgive him now."

"You will forgive him, Nicholas! You must forgive him. He needs your help. He trusts you to come to you, just as I trust you."

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course! Of course I trust you!" At this moment, he scratched his head, the expression on his face relaxed a lot, and he seemed to want to talk to me, but at this moment Bessie and Mary came back together, and Nicholas walked into the room in embarrassment In a corner full of books, I read Plato's "Utopia" and let us three girls chat and laugh together.Bessie, Mary, and I chatted about the strike, about the Hale family, and even about Margaret and his brother, and sometimes I noticed that Mr. Higgins also pulled away from the book with great interest. , listened to us and smiled knowingly, especially when Frederick was mentioned.

"What do you think Master Frederick will be like? Will he be handsome?" Mary asked me mysteriously and with interest.

"Nor have I seen him, Mary. I think Margaret is so handsome, and his brother must be handsome too."

"I always hear you advance Miss Margaret. I wish we had made friends with her like you did. Now hearing you say that, I want to see Miss Margaret more and more." Bessie said, "I I think after her brother comes back, you will get closer to the Hale family, and you may forget us by then!"

"My dear Bessie, I will always be a friend of the Higginses, and Margaret will be your friend too, and I recognize another meaning in your words. But I can assure you that in this day and age , no man would dare to accept me."

"You are so beautiful, kind, rich and educated, how can no man dare to accept you?" Bessie's eyes widened, and she firmly disagreed with me.

"What if I'm a man too? Will they accept me?" I said half-jokingly.

"You're just joking!" Bessie said disapprovingly. "If I were a man, and you have so many good qualities, I would love you even if you were a man! Love is love, isn't it? My father also Will you agree with me that he told me about Plato's advocacy of love without gender, and you say I'm right, Dad?" Bessie noticed his father listening to our conversation.

"Plato is talking about spiritual love, girl! But the ancient Greek sages believed that the love between men is higher than the emotion between men and women, and it is a kind of sacred love. I can accept this kind of love between men and women." Love, an emotion that has existed since ancient times, has only been demonized by modern Christianity."

"I know you've never been a Christian, Nicholas!" I said, laughing.

"Cali, as Hegel said 'to exist is to be rational', we cannot ignore this emotion, it is also one of human emotions."

"If you encountered such an emotion, would you accept it?"

"If it's true love, I don't care about gender. It's like I love their mother." Nicholas said no more, and he went back to his book.

"I don't understand a word of what you're saying!" protested Bessie, and Mary agreed, and I could only smile at her.Although I know that what Bessie said is a joke, I can't help but feel a little relieved to hear such words today.

"Excuse me, is this Mr. Higgins' house?" Along with the knock on the door, a familiar voice asked.Mr. Higgins stood up and opened the door. It was Mr. Bell, as I thought.I hurried over to greet him and introduced the Higgins family to him.After the two parties greeted each other politely, Mr. Bell explained his intention: "Cali, it's dusk now, we're worried that you won't come back so late, so I came here to pick you up, and the carriage is waiting outside!" It was very late, so I said goodbye to the Higgins family, and promised that Bessie would come to see him soon, and then drove to Hale's house in a carriage with Mr. Bell, and bought some apples for Mrs. Hale on the way back .

The Hale family now knew of my letter to Frederick, and the subject had been whispered cautiously at dinner.Because no one can deny the fact that Frederick is a deserter and wanted criminal who betrayed the navy. Everyone knows the truth that walls have ears, so they dare not discuss it in depth. They just use some words that everyone can understand to express the meaning.Mr. Bell, as a close friend of the Hale family, of course sided with Frederick. He also helped his godson use his financial resources to seek a pardon in the army, but with little success. Even when Mr. Bell left after dinner, the Hale family did not give up speculation on this question.Fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Hale, together with Dixon, temporarily forgot the lingering pain that had lingered in the house, and hoped that their Frederick would return home as soon as possible.

When the whole house finally returned to tranquility and everyone went to sleep, it was past midnight.Too many things happened today. In the morning, Mr. Thornton proposed marriage. At noon, Dr. Donaldson informed Mrs. Hale that her illness was incurable. In the afternoon, Mary called to deal with Boucher’s problem. In the evening, the Hale family talked about the news of her son’s return. .The day passed quickly and long, and I took out the pair of gloves that Mr. Thornton had forgotten to take away from my pocket, and looked at them again and again.

"Maybe Margaret should be back!" I sighed, put the gloves away and decided to write another letter to Margaret, telling her about Mrs. Hale, maybe seeing this letter, she would back.I lighted the candle in the bedroom, took out a pen and paper, and prepared to write a letter on the dresser.I had just finished writing "Dear Margaret" in my letter when I heard a faint knock at the door, which became more and more distinct.I took a candle and went downstairs with my clothes on, and called Dixon's name a few times, but there was no response. Maybe she was still asleep. I simply walked to the door alone, and carefully asked who it was through the door.

"Excuse me, is this Mr. Hale's house?" An elegant male voice came from the other side of the door.

"Yes, who are you?"

"This voice? Are you Margaret?" The man's voice seemed very excited.

Hearing this question, I had no doubt about who the person was outside the door. I quickly opened the door and saw a tall, fit and tall man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, because his back was facing the moonlight and he couldn't see at all. Know his appearance.He just wanted to come over and hug me, but when he saw that he was not someone he knew, he stopped in embarrassment, stood there respectfully, and looked at me in the shadows.

"Are you Mr. Frederick Hale?"

"Yes, ma'am, I am! But are you?"

I must be looking bad, too, because I'm standing there in Margaret's white nightgown, candle in hand, and my southern accent, which sounds weird to an Englishman, with my hair disheveled.Because I was afraid that he would be discovered by outsiders, I didn't care so much now, so I quickly pulled him into the house, closed the door, and said happily: "We have been guessing when you will come back all night today--sorry, I haven't introduced myself yet, sir! I am the one writing to you, a friend of Margaret's, and my name is Calpernia Addams!"