Miss Harper "knocked me down," as we boys used to say, to Charlotte Oliver; "Charlotte, my dear, you already know Mr. Smith, I believe?"
I had expected to see again, and to feel, as well, the starry5 charms of Coralie Rothvelt; but what I confronted was far different. The charms were here, unquenched by this stare of daylight, but from them shone a lustre6 of womanliness wholly new. It seemed to grow on even when a tricksy gleam shot through it as she replied, "Yes, our acquaintance dates from Gallatin."
With a spasm8 of eagerness I said it did: "Our acquai'--hh--Gallatin--hh--" But my soul cried like a culprit, "No, no, it begins only now!" and my whole being stood under arrest before the accusing truth that from Gallatin till now my acquaintance had been solely9 with that false phase of her which I knew as Coralie Rothvelt. At the same her kind eyes sweetly granted me a stripling's acquittal--oh! why did it have to be a stripling's?
Wonderful eyes she had; deep blue, as I have said, in color; black, in spirit; never so wonderful as when having sparkled black they quieted to blue again. Always then there came the slightest of contractions10 at the outer corners of the delicate lids, that gave a fourfold expression of thought, passion, tenderness and intrepidity11. I never saw that silent meaning in but one other pair of eyes; wherever it turned it said--at the same time saying many other things but saying this always plainest--"I see both out and in; I know myself--and thee." Never but in one other pair of eyes? no; and whose were those? Ned Ferry's.
"Don't you love to see Charlotte and him look at each other in that steady way when they're talking together?" Camille asked me later. But rather coldly I inquired why I should; I felt acutely enough without admitting it to Camille, that Charlotte and Ferry were meeting on ground far above me; and when Gholson, in his turn, called to my notice, in Charlotte's case, this unique gaze, and contrasted it with her beautiful yet strangely childish mouth, I asked a second time why she was here, anyhow.
"She's here," murmured Gholson, "because she has to live! To live she must have means, Smith, and to have means she must either get them herself or she must--" and again he poised13 his hand horizontally across his mouth and whispered--"live with her hus'--"
I jerked my head away--"Yes, yes." Scott Gholson was the only one of us who could give that wretch14 that title. "Gholson," I said, for I kept him plied7 with questions to prevent his questioning me, "how did that man ever get her?"
The rest of the company were going into the house; he glanced furtively15 after them and grabbed my arm; you would have thought he was about to lay bare the whole tragedy in five words; "Smith,--nobody knows!"
"Do you believe she has told Ned Ferry anything?"
"Never! About herself? no, sir!" He bent16 and whispered: "She despises him; she keeps in with him, but it's to get the news, that's all; that's positively17 all." On our way to the stable to saddle up--for we were all going to church--he told me what he knew of her story. I had heard it all and more, but I listened with unfeigned interest, for he recited it with flashes of heat and rancor18 that betrayed a cruel infatuation eating into his very bone and brain, the guilt19 of which was only intensified20 by the sour legality of his moral sense.
The church we went to was in Franklin, but the preacher was a man of note, a Vicksburg refugee. On the way back Gholson and I rode for a time near enough to Squire Sessions and Ned Ferry to know the sermon was being discussed by them, and something they said gave my companion occasion to murmur12 to me in a tone of eager censure21 that Ned Ferry's morals were better than his religion.
I said I wished mine were.
"Ah, Smith, be not deceived! Whenever you see a man bringing forth22 the fruits of the Spirit while he neglects the regularly appointed means of grace, you know there's something wrong, don't you? He went to church this morning--of course; but how often does he go? What's wrong with our dear friend--I don't like to say it, for I admire him so; I don't like to say it, and I never have said it, but, Smith,--Ned Ferry's a romanticist. We are relig'--what?"
"O--oh, nothing!"
At one point our way sloped down to a ramshackle wooden bridge that spanned a narrow bit of running water at the edge of a wood. Beyond it the road led out between two fields whose high worm-fences made it a broad lane. The farther limit of this sea of sunlight was the grove23 that hid the Sessions house on the left; on the right it was the woods-pasture in which lay concealed24 a lily-pond. As Gholson and I crossed the bridge we came upon a most enlivening view of our own procession out in the noonday blaze before us; the Sessions buggy; then Charlotte' little wagon25; next the Sessions family carriage full of youngsters; and lastly, on their horses, Squire Sessions--tall, fleshy, clean-shaven, silver-haired--and Ned Ferry. Mrs. Sessions and Miss Harper, in the buggy, were just going by a big white gate in the right-hand fence, through which a private way led eastward26 to the lily-pond. A happy sight they were, the children in the rear vehicle waving handkerchiefs back at us, and nothing in the scene made the faintest confession27 that my pet song, which I was again humming, was pat to the hour:
"To the lairds o' Convention 'twas Claverhouse spoke28,
Ere the sun shall go down there are heads to be broke."
"Gholson, if it isn't Ned Ferry's religion that's worrying you just now about him, what is it?"
My companion looked at me as if what he must say was too large for his throat. He made a gesture of lament29 toward Ferry and broke out, "O--oh Smith,"--nearly all Gholson's oh's were groans--"why is he here? The scout30 is 'the eyes of the army'! a man whose perpetual vigilance at the very foremost front--"
"Why, what do you mean? You know we're here to rejoin the company as it comes down from union Church to camp here to-night. That's what we're here for."
"Yes,--yes,--but, oh, don't you see, Smith? For you, yourself, that's all right; you've got to stay with him, and I'm glad you have. But he--oh why did he not go on hours ago, to meet them?"
"Why should he? Isn't it good to leave one's lieutenant31 sometimes in command; isn't it bad not to?"
Gholson's eyes turned green. "Does Ned Ferry give that as his reason?"
"I haven't asked his reason; I've asked you a question."
"Well, I'll answer it. Do you think Jewett has run back into his own lines?"
"Of course I do, and Ned Ferry does; don't you?"
"No! Smith, there ain't a braver man in Grant's army than that one right now a-straddle of your horse. Why, just the way he got your horse night before--"
"Oh, hang him and the horse! you've told me that three times; what of it?"
"Smith, he's out here to make a new record for himself, at whatever cost!"
"And do you imagine Ned Ferry hasn't thought of that?"
"Ah-h, there are times when a man hasn't got his thinking powers; you ought to know that, Smith,--"
"Mr. Gholson, what do you mean by that?"
"Oh! I certainly didn't mean anything against you, Smith. Why is your manner so strange to me to-day? Oh, Smith, if you knew what--if I could speak to you in sacred confidence--I--I wouldn't injure Ned Ferry in your eyes, nor in anybody's; I only tell you what I do tell so you may help me to help him. But he's staying here, Smith, and keeping you here, to be near one whose name--without her a-dreaming of it--is already coupled with--why,--why, what made you start that a-way again, Smith?"
"Nothing; I didn't start. 'Coupled with somebody's name,' you say. With whose? Go on."
"With his, Smith, and most injuriously. He's here to tempt32 her to forget she's not--" He faltered33.
"Free?" said I, and he nodded with tragic34 solemnity.
"You know who I mean, of course?"
"Certainly; you mean Mrs. Sessions."
He shook his head bitterly. "Oh, well, then, of course I know. How am I to help you to help him; help him to do what?"
"O--oh! to tear himself away from her, Smith. I want you to appeal to him. He's taken a great shine to you. You can appeal to his feeling for romance--poetry--whatever he calls his hell-fired--I mean his unfortunate impiety35. You know how, and I don't. And there you reach the foundations of his character, as far as it's got any; there's his conscience if it's anywhere!"
I find myself giving but a faint impression of the spirit in which Gholson spoke; it went away beyond a mere36 backbiting37 mood and became a temper so vindictive38 and so venomously purposeful that I was startled; his condition seemed so fearfully like that of the old paralytic39 when he whined40 "That's not our way."
"Smith," my companion went on, "we ought to protect Ned Ferry from himself!" The words came through his clenched41 teeth. "And even more we ought to protect her. Who's to do it if we don't? Smith, I believe Providence42 has been a-preparing you to do this, all through these last three nights and days!"
He looked at me for an answer until I became frightened. Was my late folly43 known to this crawling maligner44 after all? A sweet-scented preparation I've had, thought I, but aloud I said only, "If Ned Ferry clears out, I suppose we must clear out, too."
"Why, eh,--I--I don't know that my movements need have anything to do with his. Yours, of course,--"
"Yes," I interrupted, beginning to boil.
"I know," he said, "that comes hard; you'll have to tear yourself away--"
He stared at me and hushed. A panic was surging through me; must I be brought to book by such as he? "Mr. Gholson," I cried, all scorn without, all terror within; "Mr. Gholson, I--Mr. Gholson, sir!--" and set my jaws45 and heaved for breath.
"Why, Smith,--" He extended a soothing46 hand.
"No explanation, sir, if you please! I can get away from here without tearing myself, which is more than you can boast. Any fool can see why you are here. Stop, I take that back, sir! I don't play tit-for-tat with my tongue."
Gholson turned red on the brow and ashen47 about the lips. "I don't call that tit-for-tat, Mr. Smith. I remind you of an innocent attachment48 for a young girl; you accuse me of harboring a guilty passion for--" All at once he ceased with open lips, and then said as he drew a long breath of relief, "Smith, I beg your pardon! We've each misunderstood the other; I see, now, who you meant; you meant Miss Estelle Harper!"
"Whom else could I mean?" Disdain49 was in my voice, but he ought to have seen the falsehood in my eye, for I could feel it there.
"Of course!" he said; "of course! But, Smith, my mind was so full--just for the moment, you know,--of her we were speaking of in connection with Ned Ferry--Do you know? she's so unprotected and tagged after and talked about that it seems to me sometimes, in this nervous condition of mine, that if I could catch the entire gang of her pursuers in one hole I'd--I'd end 'em like so many rats. That sort of feeling is mere impulse, of course," he went on, "and only shows how near I am to that nervous breakdown50. Yes, the Harper ladies are mighty51 lovely and hard enough to leave, but that's all I meant to you, and I'm sorry I touched your feelings. I'm tchagrined. Anyhow, all this is between us, you know. I wouldn't ever have confessed such feelings as I did just now except to a friend who knows as well as you do that if I ever should do a man a mortal injury I wouldn't do it in a spirit of resentment52. You know that, don't you? No, that's not my way--Why, Smith, what gives you those starts? That's the third time you've done that this morning."
I said that entering the cool shade of the Sessions grove after the blazing heat of that long lane gave any one the right to a little shudder53, and as we turned toward the house Gholson murmured "If you say you'll speak to Ned as I've asked you, I'll sort o' toll54 Squire Sessions off with me so's to give you the chance. It's for his own sake, you know, and you're the only one can do it."
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1
veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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7
plied
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的过去式和过去分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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8
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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10
contractions
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| n.收缩( contraction的名词复数 )；缩减；缩略词；（分娩时）子宫收缩 | |
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11
intrepidity
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| n.大胆，刚勇；大胆的行为 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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rancor
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| n.深仇，积怨 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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28
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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lament
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| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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scout
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| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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32
tempt
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| vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣 | |
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33
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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impiety
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| n.不敬；不孝 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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backbiting
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| 背后诽谤 | |
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vindictive
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| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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paralytic
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| adj. 瘫痪的 n. 瘫痪病人 | |
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40
whined
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| v.哀号( whine的过去式和过去分词 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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41
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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43
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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44
maligner
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| n.诽谤者，中伤者 | |
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45
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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46
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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47
ashen
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| adj.灰的 | |
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48
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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49
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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50
breakdown
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| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
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51
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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52
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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53
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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54
toll
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| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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