CHAPTER XVI JOYCE EXPLAINS

 "Joyce, will you just oblige me by pinching me—real hard! I'm perfectly¹ certain I'm not awake!"

 

Joyce pinched, obligingly, and with vigor², thereby³ eliciting⁴ from her companion a muffled⁵ squeak⁶. The two girls were sitting on the lower step of the staircase in the dark hallway. They had been sitting there for a long, long while.

 

It was Joyce who had pulled Cynthia away from staring, wide-eyed, at the spectacle of that marvelous reunion. And they had slipped out into the hall unobserved, in order that the two in the drawing-room might have this wonderful moment to themselves. Neither of them had yet sufficiently⁷ recovered from her amazement⁸ to be quite coherent.

 

"I can't make anything out of it!" began Cynthia, slowly, at last. "He's dead!"

 

"Evidently he isn't," replied Joyce, "or he wouldn't be here! But oh!—it's true, then! I hardly dared to hope it would be so! I'm so glad I did it!" Cynthia turned on her.

 

"Joyce Kenway! What are you talking about? It sounds as though you were going crazy!"

 

"Oh, of course you don't understand!" retorted Joyce. "And it's your own fault too. I'd have been glad enough to explain, and talk it over with you, only you were so hateful that I just went home instead, and thought it out myself."

 

"Well, I may be stupid," remarked Cynthia, "but for the life of me I can't make any sense out of what you're saying!"

 

"Listen, then," said Joyce, "and I'll explain it all. You remember last night how I sat reading the newspaper,—first, just to tease you, and afterward⁹ I really got interested in it? Well, I happened to be glancing over the news about people who had just landed here from abroad, when a little paragraph caught my eye. I can't remember the exact words but it was something like this,—that among the passengers just arrived in New York on the Campania was Mr. Fairfax Collingwood, who was interested in Western and Australian gold mines. He had not been here in the East for nearly forty years, and it said how astounded¹⁰ he was at the remarkable¹¹ changes that had taken place during his long absence. Then it went on to say that he was staying at the Waldorf-Astoria for only a few days, as he was just here on some important business, and was then going to cross the continent, on his way back to Australia.

 

"Well, you'd better believe that I nearly jumped out of my skin at the name—Fairfax Collingwood. It's an unusual one, and it didn't seem possible that more than one person could have it, though of course it might be a distant connection of the same family. And then, too, our Fairfax Collingwood was dead. I didn't know what to think! I tried to get your attention, but you were still as mad as you could be, so I made up my mind I'd go home and puzzle over it by myself, and I took the paper with me.

 

"After I got home, I sat and thought and thought! And all of a sudden it occurred to me that perhaps he wasn't killed in the war after all,—that there'd been some mistake. I've read that such things did happen; but if it were so, I couldn't imagine why he didn't go and make it up with his mother afterward. It seemed very strange. And then this explanation dawned on me,—he had left that note for his mother, and perhaps thought that if she really intended to forgive him, she'd have made some effort to get word to him in the year that elapsed before he was reported killed. Then, as she never did, he may have concluded that it was all useless and hopeless, and he'd better let the report stand, and he disappear and never come back. You see that article said he hadn't been East here for forty years.

 

"And when I'd thought this out, an idea popped into my head. If what I'd imagined was true, it didn't seem right to let him go on thinking that, when I knew that his mother never saw that letter, and I decided¹² I'd let him know it. So I sat right down and wrote a note that went something like this:

 

"Mr. Fairfax Collingwood:

 

"If you are the same Mr. Fairfax Collingwood who, in 1861, parted from your mother after a disagreement, leaving a note for her which you hoped she would read, I want to tell you that she never saw that note.

 

"Joyce Kenway.

"I signed my name right out, because Father has always said that to write an anonymous¹³ letter was the most despicable thing any one could do. And if he ever discovered who I was, I wouldn't be ashamed to tell him what we had done, anyway. Of course, I ran the chance of his not being the right person, but I thought if that were so, he simply wouldn't pay any attention to the note, and the whole thing would end there. I addressed the letter to his hotel, and decided that it must be mailed that very night, for he might suddenly leave there and I'd never know where else to find him. It was then nearly ten o'clock, and I didn't want Father or Mother to know about it, so I teased Anne into running out to the post-office with me. He must have received it this morning."

 

Cynthia had listened to this long explanation in astonished silence. "Isn't it the most remarkable thing," she exclaimed when Joyce had finished, "that each of us should write, I to the mother and you to the son, and neither of us even guess what the other was doing! And that they should meet here, just this afternoon! But there are a whole lot of things I can't understand at all. Why, for instance, did he give the name of Arthur Calthorpe when he came in, and pretend he was some one else?"

 

"That's been puzzling me too," replied Joyce, "and I can't think of any reason."

 

"But the thing that confuses me most of all," added Cynthia, "is this. Why, if you had written that note, and had an idea that he was alive, were you so tremendously astonished when he and his mother recognized each other?I should have thought you'd guess right away, when you saw him at the door, who he was!"

 

"That's just the queer part of it!" said Joyce. "In the first place, I never expected him to come out here at all,—at least, not right away. I never put the name of this town in the letter, nor mentioned this house. I supposed, of course, that he'd go piling right down to South Carolina to find his mother, or see whether she was alive. Then, later, when they'd made it all up (provided she was alive, which even I didn't know then), I thought they might come back here and open the house. That was one reason I wanted to have our illumination next week, on the chance of their arriving.

 

"So you see I was quite unprepared to see him rushing out here at once; and when he gave another name, that completely deceived me. And then, there's one thing more. Somehow, I had in my mind a picture of Fairfax Collingwood that was as different as could be from—well, from what he is! You see, I'd always thought of him as the boy whom Great-aunt[Pg 191] Lucia described having seen. I pictured him as slim and young looking, smooth-faced, with golden curly hair, and big brown eyes. His eyes are the same but,—well, I somehow never counted on the change that all those forty years would make! You can't think how different my idea of him was, and naturally that helped all the more to throw me off the track."

 

"But why—" began Cynthia afresh.

 

"Oh, don't let's try to puzzle over it any more just now!" interrupted Joyce. "My head is simply in a whirl. I can't even think straight! I never had so many surprises all at once in my life. I think he will explain everything we don't understand. Let's just wait!"

 

There were faint sounds from the drawing-room, but they were indistinguishable,—low murmurings and half-hushed sobs¹⁴. The two reunited ones within were bridging the gulf¹⁵ of forty years. And so the girls continued to wait outside, in the silence and in the dark.

1 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

2 vigor   

n.活力，精力，元气

参考例句：

• The choir sang the words out with great vigor.合唱团以极大的热情唱出了歌词。
• She didn't want to be reminded of her beauty or her former vigor.现在，她不愿人们提起她昔日的美丽和以前的精力充沛。

3 thereby   

adv.因此，从而

参考例句：

• I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市，因此对它不怎么熟悉。
• He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民，因而得到了投票权。

4 eliciting   

n. 诱发, 引出 动词elicit的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• He succeeded in eliciting the information he needed from her. 他从她那里问出了他所需要的信息。
• A criminal trial isn't a tribunal for eliciting the truth. 刑事审讯并非是一种要探明真相的审判。

5 muffled   

adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己）

参考例句：

• muffled voices from the next room 从隔壁房间里传来的沉闷声音
• There was a muffled explosion somewhere on their right. 在他们的右面什么地方有一声沉闷的爆炸声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 squeak   

n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密

参考例句：

• I don't want to hear another squeak out of you!我不想再听到你出声！
• We won the game,but it was a narrow squeak.我们打赢了这场球赛，不过是侥幸取胜。

7 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

8 amazement   

n.惊奇，惊讶

参考例句：

• All those around him looked at him with amazement.周围的人都对他投射出惊异的眼光。
• He looked at me in blank amazement.他带着迷茫惊诧的神情望着我。

9 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

10 astounded   

v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶

参考例句：

• His arrogance astounded her. 他的傲慢使她震惊。
• How can you say that? I'm absolutely astounded. 你怎么能说出那种话？我感到大为震惊。

11 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

12 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

13 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

14 sobs   

啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She was struggling to suppress her sobs. 她拼命不让自己哭出来。
• She burst into a convulsive sobs. 她突然抽泣起来。

15 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。