All the glad difference between hope stark1 drowned and hope sighing back into life lightened Ferry's heart; he gripped my shoulder--the sound one, by good luck,--and drew me into the dining-room, where the whole company were gathered to see Gholson eat. Our entry was a fresh surprise. As we drank the flatteries of seven lovely welcomes, from behind Gholson I reconnoitred Charlotte, and the fullest confirmation2 of our guess was in the peaceful resolve of her eyes. I noted3 the Harpers, all, and dear Mrs. Wall's sweet freckled4 face, take new gladness of the happy change, while unable to define its cause.
But now came raptures5 and rhapsodies over the opened letters. Ferry's orders had not been expected to reach him to-night, Gholson said, and so we insisted they and my letter should remain in the saddle-pockets while Gholson ate, and while the good news, public and personal, of the Harpers' letters went round.
"But I thought the' was fi-ive letters," said the Squire6 as we were about to leave the board; at which Mrs. Wall mumbled7 to him to "hush8 up;" for the fifth was to Cécile.
"Yes," guilefully9 said Charlotte, "Richard's letter!" and we all followed Gholson to where his saddle lay on the gallery. There he handed out Ferry's document and went on rummaging10 for mine.
"The two were right here together," he said, "and Mr. Smith's was marked 'valuable' and had something hard in one corner of it." Camille brought a candle, Estelle another; Gholson rose from his knee: "Smith, it's gone! I've lost it! And yet"--he slapped his breast-pockets--"no, it's somewhere in the grove11; it's between here and that cornfield gate! I counted all the papers just this side of that gate, and I must 'a' dropped yours then!" Cécile brought a third light and we sallied forth12 into the motionless air, Estelle with a candle and Gholson, Camille with a candle and me, Cécile with a candle and Mrs. Wall, Miss Harper and the Squire, and Charlotte and Ferry. In the heart of the grove Estelle gave a soft cry, sprang, stooped, straightened, and handed me the letter.
"Yes," exclaimed Camille as the three candle-bearers gathered close, "that's your mother's writing," and as we fell into marching order again, with the lights still in the front files, I opened it. It was thick and soft with sheet after sheet of thinnest paper. With these was a sealed letter, unaddressed, containing in one corner what seemed to be a ring. Around all was a sheet of writing of later date than any other. Wonderful, my mother's lines declared, was the Providence13 that had brought her wounded boy among such priceless friends; and wonderful that same Providence that now gave her the chance to send three weeks' daily letters in one, and to send them by a hand so sure that she ventured to add this other note, a matter so secret that it must be delivered only by my own hands, or hands which I could trust as my own, to Charlotte Oliver. We glanced back in search of Charlotte. She and Ferry were well in the rear of the procession, moving with laggard14 steps, she lighting15 his page with a borrowed candle, and he evidently reading not his orders, but the Federal surgeon's letter. "Oh, don't speak yet," murmured Camille, "let them alone!"
At the garden gate the most of the company passed on into the house, Gholson among them. His face, as for an instant he turned aside to me, betrayed a frozen rage; for Ferry and Charlotte tarried just at our backs, she seated on the "horse-block" and he leaning against it. A stir of air brought by the rising moon had blown out their light. Gholson left me, and Camille waited at my side while I tried to read by the flare16 of her guttering17 candle. "Come, my dear," said Miss Harper from half-way up the walk, but Charlotte called Miss Harper.
"You'd better go in, Camille," insisted the aunt as she passed us, but Charlotte had just asked for our candle to relight her own, and she said to Miss Harper, "Let them stay, won't you?" and then to Ferry, "They might as well, mightn't they? Oh, now,"--as Camille handed her my mother's letter--"they must!" She toyed with the envelope's thinner edge without noticing the ring in the corner. "My dears," she said, looking frail18 and distressed19, yet resolute20, "I have positive intelligence--not through Captain, nor Richard, nor Mr. Gholson,--I'll tell you how some day--positive intelligence that--the dead--is not dead; the blow, Richard, glanced. I was foolish never to think of that possibility, it occurs so often. He was profoundly stunned21, so that he didn't come-to until he was brought to a surgeon. It's from that surgeon I have the news; here's his letter."
"Charlotte, my dear," interrupted Miss Harper, "tell us the remainder to-morrow, but now--"
"No, sweetest friend, there will never be another chance like this; Captain Ferry's orders carry him to Jackson at daylight to-morrow, and--and we may not meet again for years; let me go on. When the gash22 was sewed up, the hand was really the worse hurt of the two, and after a few days he was sent down on a steamer to New Orleans with a great lot of other sick and wounded, and with the commanding general's warning not to come back on peril23 of his life. 'Tisn't easy to tell this, but you four have a particular right to know it from me and at once. So let me say"--she handed Ferry my mother's letter as if it were a burdensome distraction--"I'm not sorry for the mistake, Richard, which we all so innocently made; and you mustn't be sorry for me and be saying to yourselves that my captivity24 is on me again; for I'm happier tonight than I've been since the night the mistake was made."
She dropped a hand to Ferry's to receive again the neglected letter, and chanced to take it by the corner that held the ring. With that she stared at us, fingered it, rended the envelope, gave one glance to her own name engraved25 inside a plain gold ring of the sort New Orleans girls bestow26 upon those to whom they are betrothed27, and springing to the ground between our two candles, bent28 over the open page and cried through a flood of tears, "Oh, God, have mercy on him, he is gone! He is gone, Edgard! Oh, Edgard, he is gone at last; gone beyond all doubt, and our hands--our hands and our hearts are clean!"
Ferry tossed away his candle and turned upon her, but she retreated into Miss Harper's arms laughing through her tears. "Oh, no, no! we've never hurried yet, never yet, my master in patience, and we'll not hurry now! Go and come again. Go, wait, hide your eyes till I cry 'whoop,' and come again and find me, and, I pledge you before these dear witnesses, I'll be 'it' for the rest of my life!"
With the letter again held open, and bidding Miss Harper and Camille read with her, she swept a fleet glance along the close lines that told how Oliver, half cured of his wounds, had died in a congestive chill, of swamp-fever, the day he landed in New Orleans. "See, see, Richard, here your mother has copied the hospital's certificate."
She read on aloud how two private Federal soldiers, hospital convalescents, had come to my mother telling her of his death, and how he had named my mother over and over in his delirium29, desiring that she should be given charge of the small effects on his person and that she would return them to his father in the Confederacy. My mother wrote how she had been obliged secretly to buy back from the hospital steward30 a carte-de-visite photograph of Charlotte, and this ring; how, Oliver not being a Federal soldier, she had been allowed to assume the expense and task of his burial; how she had found the body already wrapped and bound, in the military way, when she first saw it, but heard the two convalescents praising to each other the strong, hard-used beauty of the hidden face, and was shown the suit of brown plantation31 jeans we all knew so well; and how, lastly, when her overbearing conscience compelled her to tell them she might find it easier to send the relics32 to the wife rather than the father, they had furtively33 advised her to do as she pleased.
Springing to the ground between our two candles, she bent over the open page
"Charlotte," said Miss Harper, "the thing is an absolute certainty! Even without your likeness34 or--"
"Ah, no, no, not without this! the ring, the ring! But with it, yes! This is the crowning proof! my ring to him! Oh, see my name inside it, Camille; this little signet is Heaven's own testimony35 and acquittal! Look, Richard, look at it now, for no living soul, no light of day, shall ever see it again--"
"Sweet heart," replied Miss Harper, "very good! very good! but now say no more of that sort. God bless you, dear, just let yourself be happy. Good-night--no, no, sit still; stay where you are, love, while Camille and I go in and Richard steps around to the stable and puts our team into the road-wagon36; for, Captain Ferry, neither you nor he is fit to walk into Brookhaven; we can bring the rig back when we come from church to-morrow."
"No, Richard," said Charlotte, "get my wagon and the little Mexicans." Then to Miss Harper and Camille, "Good-night, dears; I'll wait here that long, if Captain Ferry will allow me." She turned to him with the moonlight in her eyes, that danced riotously37 as she said in her softest, deepest note, "You're afraid!" and I thanked Heaven that Coralie Rothvelt was still a pulsing reality in the bosom38 of Charlotte Oliver.
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1
stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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raptures
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| 极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 ) | |
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6
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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7
mumbled
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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guilefully
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| adj.狡诈的，诡计多端的 | |
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10
rummaging
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| 翻找，搜寻( rummage的现在分词 )； 海关检查 | |
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11
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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14
laggard
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| n.落后者；adj.缓慢的，落后的 | |
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15
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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16
flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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17
guttering
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| n.用于建排水系统的材料；沟状切除术；开沟 | |
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18
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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19
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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21
stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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22
gash
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| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
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23
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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24
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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25
engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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26
bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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betrothed
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| n. 已订婚者 动词betroth的过去式和过去分词 | |
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28
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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29
delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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30
steward
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| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
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31
plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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32
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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33
furtively
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| adv. 偷偷地, 暗中地 | |
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34
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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35
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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36
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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37
riotously
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| adv.骚动地，暴乱地 | |
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38
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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