Or can any one say, in these lives of a thousand concealments and restraints, when things are happening and when not, within us or without, or how near we are now to the unexpected--to fate? See, Flora and Hilary. He gave no outward show that he was burning to flee the spot and swing his fists and howl and tear the ground.
Yet Flora knew; knew by herself; by a cold rage in her own fair bosom6, where every faculty7 stood gayly alert for each least turn of incident, to foil or use it, while they talked lightly of Virginia's great step, or of the night's loveliness, counting the stars. "How small they look," she said, "how calm how still."
"Yes, and then to think what they really are! so fearfully far from small--or cold--or still!"
"Like ourselves," she prompted.
"Yes!" cried the transparent8 soldier. "At our smallest the smallest thing in us is that we should feel small. And how deep down are we calm or cold? Miss Flora, I once knew a girl--fine outside, inside. Lovers -she had to keep a turnstile. I knew a pair of them. To hear those two fellows separately tell what she was like, you couldn't have believed them speaking of the same person. The second one thought the first had--sort o'--charted her harbor for him; but when he came to sail in, 'pon my soul, if every shoal on the chart wasn't deep water, and every deep water a fortified9 shore--ha, ha, ha!"
Flora's smile was lambent. "Yes," she said, "that sweet Anna she's very intric-ate." Hilary flamed and caught his breath, but she met his eyes with the placidity10 of the sky above them.
Suddenly he laughed: "Now I know what I am! Miss Flora, I--I wish you'd be my pilot."
She gave one resenting sparkle, but then shook her averted12 head tenderly, murmured "Impossible," and smiled.
"You think there's no harbor there?"
"Listen," she said.
"Yes, I hear it, a horse."
"Captain Kincaid?"
"Miss Flora?"
"For dear Anna's sake and yours, shall I be that little bit your pilot, to say--?"
"What! to say. Don't see her to-night?"
Flora's brow sank.
"May I go with you, then, and learn why?" The words were hurried, for a horseman was in front and the others had so slackened pace that all were again in group. Anna caught Flora's reply:
"No, your cousin will be there. But to-morrow evening, bif-ore--"
"Yes," he echoed, "before anything else. I'll come. Why!"--a whinny of recognition came from the road--"why, that's my horse!"
The horseman dragged in his rein13. Constance gasped14 and Kincaid exclaimed, "Well! since when and from where, Steve Mandeville?"
The rider sprang clanking to the ground and whipped out a document. All pressed round him. He gave his bride two furious kisses, held her in one arm and handed the missive to Kincaid:
"With the compliment of Général Brodnax!"
Irby edged toward Flora, drawn15 by a look.
Hilary spoke16: "Miss Anna, please hold this paper open for me while I--Thank you." He struck a match. The horse's neck was some shelter and the two pressed close to make more, yet the match flared17. The others listened to Mandeville:
"And 'twas me dizcover' that tranzportation, juz' chanzing to arrive by the railroad--"
"Any one got a newspaper?" called Hilary. "Steve--yes, let's have a wisp o' that."
The paper burned and Hilary read. "Always the man of the moment, me!" said Mandeville. "And also 't is thangs to me you are the firs' inform', and if you are likewise the firs' to ripport--"
"Thank you!" cried Kincaid, letting out a stirrup leather. "Adolphe, will you take that despatch18 on to Bartleson?" He hurried to the other stirrup.
"Tell him no!" whispered Flora, but in vain, so quickly had Anna handed Irby the order.
"Good-night, all!" cried Hilary, mounting. He wheeled, swung his cap and galloped20.
"Hear him!" laughed Miranda to Flora, and from up the dim way his song came back:
"'I can't stand the wilderness21
But a few days, a few days.'"
Still swinging his cap he groaned22 to himself and dropped his head, then lifted it high, shook his locks like a swimmer, and with a soft word to his horse sped faster.
"Yo' pardon, sir," said Mandeville to Irby, declining the despatch, "I wou'n't touch it. For why he di'n' h-ask me? But my stable is juz yondeh. Go, borrow you a horse--all night 'f you like."
Thence Irby galloped to Bartleson's tent, returned to Callender House, dismounted and came up the steps. There stood Anna, flushed and eager, twining arms with the placid11 Flora. "Ah," said the latter, as he offered her his escort home, "but grandma and me, we--"
Anna broke in: "They're going to stay here all night so that you may ride at once to General Brodnax. Even we girls, Captain Irby, must do all we can to help your cousin get away with the battery, the one wish of his heart!" She listened, untwined and glided23 into the house.
Instantly Flora spoke: "Go, Adolphe Irby, go! Ah, snatch your luck, you lucky--man! Get him away to-night, cost what cost!" Her fingers pushed him. He kissed them. She murmured approvingly, but tore them away: "Go, go, go-o!"
Anna, pacing her chamber24, with every gesture of self-arraignment and distress25, heard him gallop19. Then standing26 in her opened window she looked off across the veranda's balustrade and down into the camp, where at lines of mess-fires like strings27 of burning beads28 the boys were cooking three days' rations29. A tap came on her door. She snatched up a toilet brush: "Come in?"
She was glad it was only Flora. "Chérie," tinkled30 the visitor, "they have permit' me!"
Anna beamed. "I was coming down," she recklessly replied, touching31 her temples at the mirror.
"Yes," said the messenger, "'cause Mandeville he was biggening to tell about Fort Sumter, and I asked them to wait--ah"--she took Anna's late pose in the window--"how plain the camp!"
"Yes," responded Anna with studied abstraction, "when the window happens to be up. It's so warm to-night, I--"
"Ah, Anna!"
"What, dear?" In secret panic Anna came and looked out at Flora's side caressingly32.
"At last," playfully sighed the Creole, "'tis good-by, Kincaid's Battery. Good-by, you hun'red good fellows, with yo' hun'red horses and yo' hun'red wheels and yo' hun'red hurras."
"And hundred brave, true hearts!" said Anna.
"Yes, and good-by, Bartleson, good-by, Tracy, good-by ladies' man!--my dear, tell me once more! For him why always that name?" Both laughed.
"I don't know, unless it's because--well--isn't it--because every lady has a piece of his heart and--no one wants all of it?"
"Ah! no one?--when so many?--"
"Now, Flora, suppose some one did! What of it, if he can't, himself, get his whole heart together to give it to any one?" The arguer offered to laugh again, but Flora was sad:
"You bil-ieve he's that way--Hilary Kincaid?"
"There are men that way, Flora. It's hard for us women to realize, but it's true!"
"Ah, but for him! For him that's a dreadful!"
"Why, no, dear, I fancy he's happiest that way."
"But not best, no! And there's another thing--his uncle! You know ab-out that, I su'pose?"
"Yes, but he--come, they'll be sending--"
"No,--no! a moment! Anna! Ah, Anna, you are too wise for me! Anna, do you think"--the pair stood in the room with the inquirer's eyes on the floor--"you think his cousin is like that?"
Anna kissed her temples, one in pity, the other in joy: "No, dear, he's not--Adolphe Irby is not."
On the way downstairs Flora seized her hands: "Oh, Anna, like always--this is just bit-win us? Ah, yes. And, oh, I wish you'd try not to bil-ieve that way--ab-out his cousin! Me, I hope no! And yet--"
"Yet what, love?" (Another panic.)
"Nothing, but--ah, he's so ki-ind to my brother! And his cousin Adolphe," she whispered as they moved on down, "I don't know, but I fear perchanze he don't like his cousin Adolphe--his cousin Adolphe--on the outside, same as the General, rough--'t is a wondrous33 how his cousin Adolphe is fond of him!"
Poor Anna. She led the way into the family group actually wheedled34 into the belief that however she had blundered with her lover, with Flora she had been clever. And now they heard the only true account of how Captain Beauregard and General Steve had taken Fort Sumter. At the same time every hearer kept one ear alert toward the great open windows. Yet nothing came to explain that Kincaid's detention35 up-town was his fond cousin's contriving36, and Sumter's story was at its end when all started at once and then subsided37 with relief as first the drums and then the bugles38 sounded--no alarm, but only, drowsily39, "taps," as if to say to Callender House as well as to the camp, "Go to slee-eep ... Go to slee-eep ... Go to bed, go to bed, go to slee-eep ... Go to slee-eep, go to slee-eep ... Go to slee-ee-eep."
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1
starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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7
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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8
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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9
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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placidity
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| n.平静，安静，温和 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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12
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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rein
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| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
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14
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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15
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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16
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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17
Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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18
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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19
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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21
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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22
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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23
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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24
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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25
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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26
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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28
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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29
rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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30
tinkled
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| （使）发出丁当声，（使）发铃铃声( tinkle的过去式和过去分词 )； 叮当响着发出，铃铃响着报出 | |
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31
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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32
caressingly
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| 爱抚地，亲切地 | |
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33
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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34
wheedled
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| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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35
detention
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| n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下 | |
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36
contriving
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| （不顾困难地）促成某事( contrive的现在分词 )； 巧妙地策划，精巧地制造（如机器）； 设法做到 | |
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37
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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38
bugles
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| 妙脆角，一种类似薯片但做成尖角或喇叭状的零食； 号角( bugle的名词复数 )； 喇叭； 匍匐筋骨草； （装饰女服用的）柱状玻璃（或塑料）小珠 | |
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39
drowsily
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| adv.睡地，懒洋洋地，昏昏欲睡地 | |
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