Chapter XXI Roses of Yesterday

 The fortnight Anne spent in Bolingbroke was a very pleasant one, with a little under current of vague pain and dissatisfaction running through it whenever she thought about Gilbert. There was not, however, much time to think about him. “Mount Holly¹,” the beautiful old Gordon homestead, was a very gay place, overrun by Phil’s friends of both sexes. There was quite a bewildering succession of drives, dances, picnics and boating parties, all expressively² lumped together by Phil under the head of “jamborees”; Alec and Alonzo were so constantly on hand that Anne wondered if they ever did anything but dance attendance on that will-o’-the-wisp of a Phil. They were both nice, manly³ fellows, but Anne would not be drawn⁴ into any opinion as to which was the nicer.

“And I depended so on you to help me make up my mind which of them I should promise to marry,” mourned Phil.

“You must do that for yourself. You are quite expert at making up your mind as to whom other people should marry,” retorted Anne, rather caustically⁵.

“Oh, that’s a very different thing,” said Phil, truly.

But the sweetest incident of Anne’s sojourn⁶ in Bolingbroke was the visit to her birthplace—the little shabby yellow house in an out-of-the-way street she had so often dreamed about. She looked at it with delighted eyes, as she and Phil turned in at the gate.

“It’s almost exactly as I’ve pictured it,” she said. “There is no honeysuckle over the windows, but there is a lilac tree by the gate, and—yes, there are the muslin curtains in the windows. How glad I am it is still painted yellow.”

A very tall, very thin woman opened the door.

“Yes, the Shirleys lived here twenty years ago,” she said, in answer to Anne’s question. “They had it rented. I remember ‘em. They both died of fever at onct. It was turrible sad. They left a baby. I guess it’s dead long ago. It was a sickly thing. Old Thomas and his wife took it—as if they hadn’t enough of their own.”

“It didn’t die,” said Anne, smiling. “I was that baby.”

“You don’t say so! Why, you have grown,” exclaimed the woman, as if she were much surprised that Anne was not still a baby. “Come to look at you, I see the resemblance. You’re complected like your pa. He had red hair. But you favor your ma in your eyes and mouth. She was a nice little thing. My darter went to school to her and was nigh crazy about her. They was buried in the one grave and the School Board put up a tombstone to them as a reward for faithful service. Will you come in?”

“Will you let me go all over the house?” asked Anne eagerly.

“Laws, yes, you can if you like. ‘Twon’t take you long—there ain’t much of it. I keep at my man to build a new kitchen, but he ain’t one of your hustlers. The parlor’s in there and there’s two rooms upstairs. Just prowl about yourselves. I’ve got to see to the baby. The east room was the one you were born in. I remember your ma saying she loved to see the sunrise; and I mind hearing that you was born just as the sun was rising and its light on your face was the first thing your ma saw.”

Anne went up the narrow stairs and into that little east room with a full heart. It was as a shrine⁷ to her. Here her mother had dreamed the exquisite⁸, happy dreams of anticipated motherhood; here that red sunrise light had fallen over them both in the sacred hour of birth; here her mother had died. Anne looked about her reverently⁹, her eyes with tears. It was for her one of the jeweled hours of life that gleam out radiantly forever in memory.

“Just to think of it—mother was younger than I am now when I was born,” she whispered.

When Anne went downstairs the lady of the house met her in the hall. She held out a dusty little packet tied with faded blue ribbon.

“Here’s a bundle of old letters I found in that closet upstairs when I came here,” she said. “I dunno what they are—I never bothered to look in ‘em, but the address on the top one is ‘Miss Bertha Willis,’ and that was your ma’s maiden¹⁰ name. You can take ‘em if you’d keer to have ‘em.”

“Oh, thank you—thank you,” cried Anne, clasping the packet rapturously.

“That was all that was in the house,” said her hostess. “The furniture was all sold to pay the doctor bills, and Mrs. Thomas got your ma’s clothes and little things. I reckon they didn’t last long among that drove of Thomas youngsters. They was destructive young animals, as I mind ‘em.”

“I haven’t one thing that belonged to my mother,” said Anne, chokily. “I—I can never thank you enough for these letters.”

“You’re quite welcome. Laws, but your eyes is like your ma’s. She could just about talk with hers. Your father was sorter homely¹¹ but awful nice. I mind hearing folks say when they was married that there never was two people more in love with each other—Pore creatures, they didn’t live much longer; but they was awful happy while they was alive, and I s’pose that counts for a good deal.”

Anne longed to get home to read her precious letters; but she made one little pilgrimage first. She went alone to the green corner of the “old” Bolingbroke cemetery¹² where her father and mother were buried, and left on their grave the white flowers she carried. Then she hastened back to Mount Holly, shut herself up in her room, and read the letters. Some were written by her father, some by her mother. There were not many—only a dozen in all—for Walter and Bertha Shirley had not been often separated during their courtship. The letters were yellow and faded and dim, blurred¹³ with the touch of passing years. No profound words of wisdom were traced on the stained and wrinkled pages, but only lines of love and trust. The sweetness of forgotten things clung to them—the far-off, fond imaginings of those long-dead lovers. Bertha Shirley had possessed¹⁴ the gift of writing letters which embodied¹⁵ the charming personality of the writer in words and thoughts that retained their beauty and fragrance¹⁶ after the lapse¹⁷ of time. The letters were tender, intimate, sacred. To Anne, the sweetest of all was the one written after her birth to the father on a brief absence. It was full of a proud young mother’s accounts of “baby”—her cleverness, her brightness, her thousand sweetnesses.

“I love her best when she is asleep and better still when she is awake,” Bertha Shirley had written in the postscript¹⁸. Probably it was the last sentence she had ever penned. The end was very near for her.

“This has been the most beautiful day of my life,” Anne said to Phil that night. “I’ve FOUND my father and mother. Those letters have made them REAL to me. I’m not an orphan¹⁹ any longer. I feel as if I had opened a book and found roses of yesterday, sweet and beloved, between its leaves.”

1 holly   

n.[植]冬青属灌木

参考例句：

• I recently acquired some wood from a holly tree.最近我从一棵冬青树上弄了些木料。
• People often decorate their houses with holly at Christmas.人们总是在圣诞节时用冬青来装饰房屋。

2 expressively   

ad.表示(某事物)地；表达地

参考例句：

• She gave the order to the waiter, using her hands very expressively. 她意味深长地用双手把订单递给了服务员。
• Corleone gestured expressively, submissively, with his hands. "That is all I want." 说到这里，考利昂老头子激动而谦恭地表示：“这就是我的全部要求。” 来自教父部分

3 manly   

adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地

参考例句：

• The boy walked with a confident manly stride.这男孩以自信的男人步伐行走。
• He set himself manly tasks and expected others to follow his example.他给自己定下了男子汉的任务，并希望别人效之。

4 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

5 caustically   

adv.刻薄地；挖苦地；尖刻地；讥刺地

参考例句：

• Detective Sun laughed caustically. 孙侦探冷笑了一下。 来自互联网
• He addressed her caustically. 他用挖苦的语气对她说。 来自互联网

6 sojourn   

v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留

参考例句：

• It would be cruel to begrudge your sojourn among flowers and fields.如果嫉妒你逗留在鲜花与田野之间，那将是太不近人情的。
• I am already feeling better for my sojourn here.我在此逗留期间，觉得体力日渐恢复。

7 shrine   

n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣

参考例句：

• The shrine was an object of pilgrimage.这处圣地是人们朝圣的目的地。
• They bowed down before the shrine.他们在神龛前鞠躬示敬。

8 exquisite   

adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的

参考例句：

• I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
• I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。

9 reverently   

adv.虔诚地

参考例句：

• He gazed reverently at the handiwork. 他满怀敬意地凝视着这件手工艺品。
• Pork gazed at it reverently and slowly delight spread over his face. 波克怀着愉快的心情看着这只表，脸上慢慢显出十分崇敬的神色。

10 maiden   

n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的

参考例句：

• The prince fell in love with a fair young maiden.王子爱上了一位年轻美丽的少女。
• The aircraft makes its maiden flight tomorrow.这架飞机明天首航。

11 homely   

adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的

参考例句：

• We had a homely meal of bread and cheese.我们吃了一顿面包加乳酪的家常便餐。
• Come and have a homely meal with us,will you?来和我们一起吃顿家常便饭，好吗？

12 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

13 blurred   

v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离

参考例句：

• She suffered from dizziness and blurred vision. 她饱受头晕目眩之苦。
• Their lazy, blurred voices fell pleasantly on his ears. 他们那种慢吞吞、含糊不清的声音在他听起来却很悦耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

15 embodied   

v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• a politician who embodied the hopes of black youth 代表黑人青年希望的政治家
• The heroic deeds of him embodied the glorious tradition of the troops. 他的英雄事迹体现了军队的光荣传统。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 fragrance   

n.芬芳，香味，香气

参考例句：

• The apple blossoms filled the air with their fragrance.苹果花使空气充满香味。
• The fragrance of lavender filled the room.房间里充满了薰衣草的香味。

17 lapse   

n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效

参考例句：

• The incident was being seen as a serious security lapse.这一事故被看作是一次严重的安全疏忽。
• I had a lapse of memory.我记错了。

18 postscript   

n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明

参考例句：

• There was the usual romantic postscript at the end of his letter.他的信末又是一贯的浪漫附言。
• She mentioned in a postscript to her letter that the parcel had arrived.她在信末附笔中说包裹已寄到。

19 orphan   

n.孤儿；adj.无父母的

参考例句：

• He brought up the orphan and passed onto him his knowledge of medicine.他把一个孤儿养大，并且把自己的医术传给了他。
• The orphan had been reared in a convent by some good sisters.这个孤儿在一所修道院里被几个好心的修女带大。