"The Taliasman Ring" / "The Nonesuch"

Re-reading Georgette Heyer is such an indulgence.

男主：冷面腹黑忠犬 Tristam，来处理舅舅后事； 女二： 被托孤的追求浪漫的法国小妞Eustacie （不朽名言：我留在法国就能一身素白独坐囚车上了，你难道不感动？）； 女主： 和哥哥路过事发客栈的有范有脑爱拦事的御姐； 男二： 年轻冲动枪法好，背了冤名本该潜逃在外却在附近当起走私客，受伤后被困在客栈。四人合力在floppish 表亲/候补继承人那里找到能洗清他罪名的talisman ring 。 难怪后半部冒险成分远大于言情成分，两对实在都是一拍即合，虽然主对含蓄些。

• How long is it now since they sent the King to the guillotine? Over a month, eh? Mark me, Tristram, the Queen will go the same road before the year is out. I’m happy to think I shan’t be here to see it.
• Her inches were few, but her figure was extremely good, and she bore herself with an air.
• became her much better than it did really. For me, I think one should wear white to the guillotine if one is quite young, and not carry anything except perhaps a handkerchief. Do you not agree?’
• ‘You wouldn’t be all alone. There would be a great many other people in the tumbril with you,’ said Sir Tristram. Eustacie eyed him with considerable displeasure. ‘In my tumbril there would not have been a great many other people,’ she said.
• ‘Vraiment? I do not yet know what is the fashion in England, but naturally if you assure me it is not à la mode, I won’t have any lover. Can I have a house in town?’
• ‘I will tell you something,’ said Eustacie, incensed. ‘Whenever I recount to you an interesting story you make me an answer which is like – which is like those snuffers – enfin!’
• Each at first glance felt moderately pleased with the other, a complacent mood which lasted for perhaps ten minutes, at the end of which time Sir Tristram was contemplating with grim misgiving the prospect of encountering vivacity at the breakfast-table for the rest of his life, and Eustacie was wondering whether her betrothed was capable of uttering anything but the most damping of monosyllables.
• ‘After all, I have had a very unhappy life without any adventures, and it would not be wonderful if I went into a decline. Only nothing that is interesting ever happens to me,’ she added bitterly, ‘so I dare say I shall just die in child-bed, which is a thing anyone can do.’
• Let me present myself to you: I’m one Sarah Thane, a creature of no importance at all, travelling to London with my brother, whom you may hear snoring upstairs.’
• because she seems to me to be a person of large ideas, and when it is shown to her that she holds your life in her hands, she will be interested, and wish to assist us.’
• when I asked him if he would ride ventre à terre to come to my death-bed, he said “Certainly not”!’ ‘This is more shocking than all the rest!’ declared Miss Thane. ‘He must be quite heartless!’ ‘Yes,’ said Eustacie bitterly. ‘He says I am not in the least likely to die.’
• ‘Spars with Mendoza,’ pursued Sir Hugh. ‘If he’s the man, I’ve met him at Mendoza’s place.
• A pair of stern, rather frowning grey eyes met hers with an expression of the most complete indifference. Miss Thane let go of the banisters, and came forward. ‘Do tell me!’ she said invitingly. ‘Are you “my cousin Tristram”?’
• ‘Well, miss, and supposing you are, what call have you to go riding off in the night? I never heard of the Quality doing such!’ ‘I was running away from Sir Tristram,’ said Eustacie. ‘Oh!’ said the Exciseman, looking more dubious than ever. Sir Tristram stood like a rock. Miss Thane, taking one look at his outraged profile, was shaken by inward laughter,
• ‘When the riderless horse arrived at the Court he at once feared some mishap had overtaken his cousin, and set out to ride – ventre à terre – to the rescue. Is that not so, dear sir?’ Aware of one compelling pair of humorous grey eyes upon him, and one imploring pair of black ones, Sir Tristram said: ‘Just so, ma’am.’
• What the devil did you mean by telling that long-nosed tidesman that I’m one of Sylvester’s by-blows?’ ‘But no, Ludovic, no! I find that was very clever of him!’ protested Eustacie. ‘Did you not think so, Sarah?’ Miss Thane said gravely: ‘I’m lost in admiration of so quick a wit. You never told me he was such an excellent conspirator.’
• ‘One must make reparation, enfin. I will marry you.’ ‘Thank you,’ said Sir Tristram, ‘but the matter does not call for such a sacrifice as that, I assure you.’ He saw a certain raptness steal into her eyes, and added: ‘Don’t waste time picturing yourself in the rôle of a martyred bride, I beg of you! I haven’t the smallest desire to marry you.’
• Unfortunately, you, Sir Tristram, knowing nothing of me, and being possessed of a tyrannical disposition – I beg your pardon?’ ‘I did not speak,’ replied Sir Tristram, eyeing her frostily. Miss Thane met his look with one of liquid innocence. ‘Oh, I quite thought you did!’ ‘I choked,’ explained Sir Tristram. ‘Pray continue! You had reached my tyrannical disposition.’
• Miss Thane. ‘I mean – it would be easier, wouldn’t it?’ ‘In an adventure,’ said Eustacie severely, ‘it is not proper to have everything quite easy.’
• Sir Tristram said dryly: ‘Of course. I should have thought of that. I trust neither of you will hesitate to vilify my character whenever it seems expedient to you to do so.’ ‘No, of course we shall not,’ Miss Thane assured him. ‘But you do not mind, mon cousin, do you?’ ‘On the contrary, I am becoming quite accustomed to it. But I am afraid even your imagination must fail soon. I have been in swift succession a tyrant, a thief and a murderer, and now a fortune-hunter.
• ‘Also the strap-and-jewel work overmantel in the drawing-room,’
• She launched forth into a sea of talk, in which Dutch influence, the style of the Renaissance, the inferiority of Flemish craftsmanship, and the singular beauty of the Gothic jostled one another like rudderless boats adrift in a whirlpool.
• By the time she had exhibited her commonplace book (in which Sir Tristram had had the forethought to sketch a few rough pictures of totally imaginary horses),
• He gave a short laugh. ‘There is no fear of my falling in love, ma’am. I learned my lesson early in life, but believe me, I have not forgotten it!’ ‘How melancholy it is to reflect that so few people have the good sense to profit by their experience as you have done!’ said Miss Thane soulfully.
• Eustacie said earnestly: ‘Oh, I did not mind at all! Besides, you kissed me before, do you not remember?’ ‘Oh, that!’ he said. ‘That was a mere cousinly kiss!’ ‘And this one, not?’ she said simply. ‘I am glad.’
• ‘It’s my belief,’ said Sir Hugh, looking fixedly at the unfortunate Runners, ‘that they’re drunk. Both of them.’ Mr Stubbs, who had not been offered any liquid refreshment at all, protested almost tearfully.
• ain’t no female.’ ‘Oh, don’t let them touch me!’ implored Miss Thane, shrieking artistically towards Sir Tristram. ‘I’ve no intention of letting them touch you, but don’t get in my way,’ said Sir Tristram unromantically.
• Two men attacked me…’ ‘Ah, she is swooning!’ exclaimed Eustacie. ‘What an outrage! What villainy!’ Miss Thane, having assured herself that Sir Tristram was close enough to catch her, closed her eyes, and sank gracefully back into his arms.
• Miss Thane found that she had underestimated her opponent. Not a muscle quivered in Shield’s face. He said immediately: ‘This news should have been broken to you at a more suitable time, Thane. Spare your sister’s blushes, I beg of you!’
• ‘To persons deep in love,’ said Sir Tristram soulfully, ‘any breeze is balmy.’ ‘Hateful wretch!’ said Miss Thane, with deep feeling, ‘Pay no heed to him, Hugh! Of course, I did not go to meet him!’ Sir Tristram appeared to be overcome. ‘You play fast and loose with me,’ he said reproachfully. ‘You have dashed my hopes to the ground, shattered my self-esteem –’ ‘If you say another word, I’ll box your ears!’ threatened Miss Thane. Sir Hugh shook his head at her in mild disapproval. ‘I see what it is: you’ve been flirting again,’ he said.
• notion we shouldn’t get out of this so hem easy. As good be nibbled to death by ducks as set out on one of Master Ludovic’s ventures!
• He followed her out of the room, and as they mounted the stairs, said: ‘I wish you will rid yourself of this nonsensical notion that I disapprove of you.’ ‘But do you not?’ inquired Miss Thane, turning her head. He stopped two stairs below her, and stood looking up at her, something not quite a smile at the back of his eyes. ‘Sometimes,’ he said.

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又是从继承遗产起事。男主 Sir Waldo 作为Corinthian威名远扬，来装修老房子筹办孤儿院； 女主 Ancilla Trent 出身将门，是一位自私蛮横的小美女Tiffany （ie the Beautiful Baggage） 的家教兼同伴。Waldo 的greenhorn 侄子Julian 自然对Tiffany 一见倾心，男女主的努力让他擦亮双眼，转身爱上牧师女儿，挺身救urchin的Patience。末1/4时眼看男女主两情相悦水到渠成，Ancilla 却从Julian 处误以为 Waldo 有许多私生子，Waldo 另一位never-do-well 侄子意外助攻，故事以大家去Leeds合力阻止Tiffany 出逃去伦敦为高潮结束。

• He had even taught him something of his own way with the starched folds of a neckcloth: not the intricacies of the Mathematical or the Oriental Tie, but an elegant fashion of his own, as unobtrusive as it was exquisite.
• ‘It’s perfectly true!’ argued Miss Wield. ‘I didn’t make my face, so why shouldn’t I say it’s beautiful? Everyone else does!’ ... Miss Trent regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Well, it’s an odd circumstance, but I’ve frequently observed that whenever you boast of your beauty you seem to lose some of it. I expect it must be the change in your expression.’
• Mrs Underhill was an easy-going woman, but she might have roused herself to struggle for possession of the heiress if she had been able to suppress a feeling of relief at the prospect of being rid of a damsel crudely described by the rougher members of her household as a proper varmint.
• is that you couldn’t wear the dress that becomes you better than any of the others: – I mean the one with the knots of ribbon and the sash exactly the colour of your eyes.’ ‘Yes, I could!’ ‘Not in Mrs Mickleby’s drawing-room!’ Ancilla said. ‘Only think of all those green curtains and chairs! the effect would be ruined!’
• Their eyes met, both pairs gray, hers very cool and clear, his faintly smiling; she gave him her hand, and was aware of the strength latent in the clasp of his. She was a tall woman, but she had to look up to his face; and, as she did so, she became conscious of a tug of attraction. The thought flashed into her mind that she beheld the embodiment of her ideal.
• my small experience informs me that catching fish is not necessary for your true angler’s enjoyment.’ ‘Oh, no! But to lose a fish is quite another matter!’ ‘Certainly! One cannot wonder that it should cast even the most cheerful person into gloom, for it is always such an enormous one that escapes!’
• ‘I am serious!’ protested Sir Waldo. ‘Quite perturbed, in fact! I have sustained an introduction to someone who, unless I am much mistaken, does disapprove of me.’ ‘Who?’ demanded Julian. ‘A female whose name I can’t recall. A remarkably good-looking one, too,’ he added reflectively. ‘And not just in the common style, either.’ ‘She sounds a maggoty creature to me!’ said Julian frankly. ‘Not but what I think you’re shamming it! Why should she disapprove of you?’ ‘I rather fear, my fatal addiction to sport.’
• wake, reflected that he would have thought Tiffany’s artlessness amusing, if only some other young man than Julian had been enthralled by it.
• when it came to playing Jackstraws the Nonesuch had them all beat to flinders, even Miss Trent, who had such deft fingers. It seemed that he had challenged Miss Trent to a match, when he discovered how good she was at the game.
• So he remained at Broom Hall, steering an intricate course between his own interests and Julian’s. His trusting young cousin would have been astonished, and deeply shocked, had he known that Waldo’s lazy complaisance masked a grim determination to thrust a spoke into the wheel of his courtship.
• It was not his custom to trifle with the affections of fledglings, but within a week of having made Tiffany’s acquaintance he set himself, without compunction, to the task of intriguing her to the point of pursuing him in preference to Julian.
• ‘They do!’ she asserted, pink with indignation. ‘They say – everyone says I’m beautiful!’ He managed to preserve his countenance, but his lips twitched slightly. ‘Yes, of course,’ he replied. ‘It’s well known that all heiresses are beautiful!’
• He sat down beside her. ‘No, I don’t,’ he confessed. ‘I’ll own to you that I’ve been torn between the hope that you did know, and the dread of having a peal rung over me!’ If she blushed it was so slightly that he was unaware of it.
• ‘Are you? Oh, dear, how horrid it is, and how very difficult to know what my duty is! Odious to be scheming against the child!’ ‘Is that what you are doing? I had no notion of it, and thought the scheming was all on my side.’ ‘Not precisely scheming, but – but conniving, by allowing you to bamboozle her!’
• rattling fall one of these days.’ ‘Lord, sir, I’ve told her over and over again to ride fast at water, and slow at timber, but she never pays the least heed to what anyone says! She’s a show-off – though I’ll say this for her!! – she don’t care a rush for a tumble!’
• ‘That shows how little you know! It makes a great deal of difference, I promise you. Females who are paid very high wages are never used like drudges.’
• What’s more, if she ain’t in the room he don’t look up every time the door opens, hoping she’s going to come in!’ Her cool composure seriously disturbed, Ancilla said involuntarily: ‘Oh, Mrs Underhill, d-does he do so when – Oh, no! Surely not?’... ‘Certainly not!’ said Mrs Underhill. ‘But don’t you behave missish, my dear, and start hinting him away because you think you ain’t good enough for him! That’s for him to decide, and you may depend upon it that a man of five – or six-and-thirty knows what will suit him. It would be a splendid thing for you, let alone making the Squire’s lady and Mrs Banningham as mad as fire!’ On this invigorating thought she took her departure, leaving Miss Trent to her own reflections.
• Sir Waldo either. He had shown himself to be most truly the gentleman, never above his company, nor betraying his boredom, and never seeking to impress the neighbourhood by playing off the airs of an exquisite.
• She decided that her wisest course would be to put him out of her mind. After reaching this conclusion she lay thinking about him until at last she fell asleep.
• ‘Far be it from me to desire her to outshine her friends,’ said the Rector unconvincingly, ‘but I have sometimes thought that although she cannot rival little Tiffany’s beauty she is by far the more graceful dancer.’
• Even the sporting gentleman in the tilbury had paid her no heed! Patience – Patience – ! – kneeling in the road, with her dress stained with blood, and a ragged and disgusting urchin in her arms, was the heroine of this most revolting piece, while she, the Beautiful Miss Wield, was left to hold as best she might two parasols, two purses, and a load of parcels.
• ‘Do, Tiffany, strive for a little conduct!’ interrupted Miss Trent. ‘I am not going to bandy words with you in public, so you may as well keep your tongue.’
• Tiffany never consciously deviated from the truth, but since she saw everything only as it affected herself the truth was apt to become somewhat distorted.
• He had often felt sorry for Laurie, but his pity had been mixed with contempt; and because he had never liked him he had given him money, which was an easy thing to do, instead of the very different services he had rendered Julian.
• but I own I shall always regret that I was denied the privilege of meeting the low, vulgar, and disgustingly ill-mannered young gentleman in the tilbury!’ That drew an involuntary laugh from Julian. ‘Baldock! First he said he didn’t see why she should faint, and then he called her a shrew!
• Unwilling to marry, and resolved neither to add to the expenses of her brother’s household nor to hang upon her uncle’s sleeve, she had made her difficult decision, against the loudly expressed wishes of her family, and in the full realization that if she became a schoolmistress she would, to all intents and purposes, have renounced the world.
• She had believed herself to be a rational woman, with a well-regulated mind and a temperate disposition; but since his coming into Yorkshire she had swung from breathless happiness to doubt and despondency. Her heart had never previously opposed her mind: they seemed now to be in eternal conflict, the one warning her to take care, the other urging her to throw care and discretion to the wind.
• She said cheerfully that she did not wonder at it that Tiffany was bored with her admirers, but that she thought she might have chosen a better way of being rid of them. Tiffany stared at her. ‘Nothing, of course, makes a gentleman retire more quickly than a fit of the tantrums;
• her mind that nothing, after all, was so wildly improbable as her own headlong tumble into love with the epitome of all that she held in contempt; and that that was precisely what she had done there was no doubt whatsoever... Had anyone but Lindeth told her that Sir Waldo had fathered nameless children she would not have lent the tale a moment’s belief.
• Julian, wrapped up in his own affairs, might not know that Waldo had visited Staples every day for more than a sennight, but his far more astute cousin knew it. It looked very much as if Waldo had popped the question, and had been rejected.
• Miss Trent’s eyes were downcast, but they lifted as he turned away, and followed him across the room. Lord! thought Laurence, startled, who would have thought that such a cool creature could look like that? Flat despair!
• you may depend upon it Patience will be a dead bore, going into raptures over some weed, and saying it’s a rare plant, or – But I mean to bear it, even if she moralizes about nature!’
• Well, you may tell your precious cousin, with my compliments, that I ain’t such a gudgeon as to run off with a girl who won’t come into her inheritance for four years!’ said Laurence, much incensed.
• ‘She couldn’t go post,’ said Miss Trent decidedly. ‘She spent all her pin-money in Harrogate. And I must think it extremely unlikely that Mr Calver could have been able to oblige her with a loan.
• She felt helpless, knowing it was her duty to go to Tiffany, longing to be with Sir Waldo, dreading to be with him, afraid, not of his strength but of her own weakness.
• You do not appear to me to be suffering from any want of spirits!’ He laughed. ‘Oh, no! Not since it occurred to me that you were blue-devilled too!’
• ‘George,’ interpolated Sir Waldo. ‘Are you sure he didn’t refer to them as Waldo’s wretched brats?’... ‘I believe he did,’ she replied stiffly. ‘You shouldn’t tamper with the text. Go on!’
• And if I hear another word from you in disparagement of the Corinthian set it will be very much the worse for you!’ Since he palliated this severity by putting his arm round her she was undismayed.
• he said, his amused gaze on Laurence’s face: ‘Do tell me, Laurie! Why did you send for me rather than for Underhill?’ Laurence shot him a resentful look. ‘Thought I could do you a good turn, that’s why! And well you know it!’