The exception to the general rule was a young man who came one bright spring morning when all nature suggested getting one's stuff out and going into the country, and had the room next the Forsyths' original five-dollar room opened. As it happened, Charlotte was at the moment visiting this room upon her mother's charge to see whether certain old scrim sash-curtains, which [Pg 20]they had not needed for ages but at last simply must have, were not lurking2 there in a chest of general curtainings. The Forsyths now had rooms on other floors, but their main room was at the end of the corridor branching northward3 from that where the five-dollar room was. Near this main room that nice New York family had their rooms, and Charlotte had begun the morning in their friendly neighborhood, going through some chests that might perhaps have the general curtainings in them and the scrim curtains among the rest. It had not, and she had gone to what the Forsyths called their old ancestral five-dollar room, where that New York family continued to project a sort of wireless4 chaperonage over her. But the young man had come with a porter, and, with her own porter, Charlotte could not feel that even a wireless chaperonage was needed, though the young man approached with the most beaming face she thought she had ever seen, and said he hoped he should not be in her way. She answered with a sort of helpless reverberation5 of his glow, Not at all; she should only be a moment. She wanted to say she hoped she would not be in his way, but she saved herself in time, while, with her own eyes intent upon the façade of her room and her mind trying to lose itself in the question which curtain-trunk [Pg 21]the scrims might be in, she kept the sense of his sweet eyes, the merriest eyes she had ever seen, effulgent6 with good-will and apology and reverent7 admiration8. She blushed to think it admiration, though she liked to think it so, and she did not snub him when the young man jumped about, neglecting his own storage, and divining the right moments for his offers of help. She saw that he was a little shorter than herself, that he was very light and quick on his feet, and had a round, brown face, clean-shaven, and a round, brown head, close shorn, from which in the zeal9 of his attentions to her he had shed his straw hat onto the window-sill. He formed a strong contrast to the contents of his store-room, which was full, mainly, of massive white furniture picked out in gold, and very blond. He said casually10 that it had been there, off and on, since long before he could remember, and at these words an impression, vague, inexplicable11, deepened in Charlotte's mind.
"Mother," she said, for she had now disused the earlier "mamma" in deference12 to modern usage, "how old was I when we first took that five-dollar room?"
She asked this question after she had shown the scrim curtains she had found and brought home with her.
[Pg 22]"Why? I don't know. Two or three; three or four. I should have to count up. What makes you ask?"
"I should say not, decidedly."
"Or recollect a face?"
"Certainly not."
"Then of course it wasn't. Mother, do you remember ever telling me what the little boy was like who gave me all his playthings and I couldn't decide what to give him back?"
"What a question! Of course not! He was very brown and funny, with the beamingest little face in the world. Rather short for his age, I should say, though I haven't the least idea what his age was."
"Then it was the very same little boy!" Charlotte said.
"Who was the very same little boy?" her mother demanded.
"The one that was there to-day; the young man, I mean," Charlotte explained, and then she told what had happened with a want of fullness which her mother's imagination supplied.
"Did he say who he was? Is he coming back to-morrow or this afternoon? Did you inquire who he was or where?"
[Pg 23]"What an idea, mother!" Charlotte said, grouping the several impossibilities under one head in her answer.
"You had a perfect right to know, if you thought he was the one."
"But I didn't think he was the one, and I don't know that he is now; and if he was, what could I do about it?"
"That is true," Mrs. Forsyth owned. "But it's very disappointing. I've always felt as if they ought to know it was your undecidedness and not ungenerousness."
Charlotte laughed a little forlornly, but she only said, "Really, mother!"
Mrs. Forsyth was still looking at the curtains. "Well, these are not the scrims I wanted. You must go back. I believe I will go with you. The sooner we have it over the better," she added, and she left the undecided Charlotte to decide whether she meant the scrim curtains or the young man's identity.
It was very well, for one reason, that she decided14 to go with Charlotte that afternoon. The New-Yorkers must have completed the inspection15 of their trunks, for they had not come back. Their failure to do so was the more important because the young man had come back and was actively16 superintending the unpacking17 of his room. The [Pg 24]palatial furniture had all been ranged up and down the corridor, and as fast as a trunk was got out and unlocked he went through it with the help of the storage-men, listed its contents in a note-book with a number, and then transferred the number and a synopsis18 of the record to a tag and fastened it to the trunk, which he had put back into the room.
When the Forsyths arrived with the mistaken scrim curtains, he interrupted himself with apologies for possibly being in their way; and when Mrs. Forsyth said he was not at all in their way, he got white-and-gold arm-chairs for her and Charlotte and put them so conveniently near the old ancestral room that Mrs. Forsyth scarcely needed to move hand or foot in letting Charlotte restore the wrong curtains and search the chests for the right ones. His politeness made way for conversation and for the almost instant exchange of confidences between himself and Mrs. Forsyth, so that Charlotte was free to enjoy the silence to which they left her in her labors19.
"Before I say a word," Mrs. Forsyth said, after saying some hundreds in their mutual20 inculpation21 and exculpation22, "I want to ask something, and I hope you will excuse it to an old woman's curiosity and not think it rude."
At the words "old woman's" the young man [Pg 25]gave a protesting "Oh!" and at the word "rude" he said, "Not at all."
"It is simply this: how long have your things been here? I ask because we've had this room thirteen or fourteen years, and I've never seen your room opened in that whole time."
The young man laughed joyously23. "Because it hasn't been opened in that whole time. I was a little chap of three or four bothering round here when my mother put the things in; I believe it was a great frolic for me, but I'm afraid it wasn't for her. I've been told that my activities contributed to the confusion of the things and the things in them that she's been in ever since, and I'm here now to make what reparation I can by listing them."
"She'll find it a great blessing," Mrs. Forsyth said. "I wish we had ours listed. I suppose you remember it all very vividly24. It must have been a great occasion for you seeing the things stored at that age."
The young man beamed upon her. "Not so great as now, I'm afraid. The fact is, I don't remember anything about it. But I've been told that I embarrassed with my personal riches a little girl who was looking over her doll's things."
"Oh, indeed!" Mrs. Forsyth said, stiffly, and she turned rather snubbingly from him and said, [Pg 26]coldly, to Charlotte: "I think they are in that green trunk. Have you the key?" and, stooping as her daughter stooped, she whispered, "Really!" in condemnation25 and contempt.
Charlotte showed no signs of sharing either, and Mrs. Forsyth could not very well manage them alone. So when Charlotte said, "No, I haven't the key, mother," and the young man burst in with, "Oh, do let me try my master-key; it will unlock anything that isn't a Yale," Mrs. Forsyth sank back enthroned and the trunk was thrown open.
She then forgot what she had wanted it opened for. Charlotte said, "They're not here, mother," and her mother said, "No, I didn't suppose they were," and began to ask the young man about his mother. It appeared that his father had died twelve years before, and since then his mother and he had been nearly everywhere except at home, though mostly in England; now they had come home to see where they should go next or whether they should stay.
"That would never suit my daughter," Mrs. Forsyth lugged26 in, partly because the talk had gone on away from her family as long as she could endure, and partly because Charlotte's indecision always amused her. "She can't bear to choose."
[Pg 27]"Really?" the young man said. "I don't know whether I like it or not, but I have had to do a lot of it. You mustn't think, though, that I chose this magnificent furniture. My father bought an Italian palace once, and as we couldn't live in it or move it we brought the furniture here."
"It is magnificent," Mrs. Forsyth said, looking down the long stretches of it and eying and fingering her specific throne. "I wish my husband could see it—I don't believe he remembers it from fourteen years ago. It looks—excuse me!—very studio."
"Is he a painter? Not Mr. Forsyth the painter?"
"Yes," Mrs. Forsyth eagerly admitted, but wondering how he should know her name, without reflecting that a score of trunk-tags proclaimed it and that she had acquired his by like means.
"I like his things so much," he said. "I thought his three portraits were the best things in the Salon27 last year."
"Oh, you saw them?" Mrs. Forsyth laughed with pleasure and pride. "Then," as if it necessarily followed, "you must come to us some Sunday afternoon. You'll find a number of his new portraits and some of the subjects; they like to see themselves framed." She tried for a card in her hand-bag, but she had none, and she [Pg 28]said, "Have you one of my cards, my dear?" Charlotte had, and rendered it up with a severity lost upon her for the moment. She held it toward him. "It's Mr. Peter Bream?" she smiled upon him, and he beamed back.
"Did you remember it from our first meeting?"
In their cab Mrs. Forsyth said, "I don't know whether he's what you call rather fresh or not, Charlotte, and I'm not sure that I've been very wise. But he is so nice, and he looked so glad to be asked."
Charlotte did not reply at once, and her silent severity came to the surface of her mother's consciousness so painfully that it was rather a relief to have her explode, "Mother, I will thank you not to discuss my temperament28 with people."
She gave Mrs. Forsyth her chance, and her mother was so happy in being able to say, "I won't—your temper, my dear," that she could add with sincere apology: "I'm sorry I vexed29 you, and I won't do it again."
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1
dearth
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| n.缺乏，粮食不足，饥谨 | |
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2
lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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3
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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4
wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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reverberation
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| 反响； 回响； 反射； 反射物 | |
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effulgent
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| adj.光辉的；灿烂的 | |
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7
reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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8
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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9
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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10
casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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12
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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13
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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14
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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15
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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16
actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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17
unpacking
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| n.取出货物，拆包[箱]v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的现在分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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18
synopsis
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| n.提要，梗概 | |
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19
labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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20
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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inculpation
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| n.控告 | |
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exculpation
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| n.使无罪，辩解 | |
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23
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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lugged
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| vt.用力拖拉（lug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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28
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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29
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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